Hello, and welcome to DEEPER LOOK,

coming to you from the center of American politics here in Washington.

I'm Del Irani, it's great to have your company.

Today, we're delving deep into the 2024 US presidential election,

exploring the latest issues driving voter sentiment.

As things stand, a rematch between current President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump is seeming increasingly likely.

But concerns about both potential candidates' age and unpopularity

have Americans across the political spectrum worried.

So, why are these two candidates still leading their respective parties?

And what implications does this have for the election and the future of US politics?

Well, joining us today is Elaine Kamarck.

She's an expert on American electoral politics at the Brookings Institution.

She's a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee,

and has worked on many American presidential campaigns.

Elaine Kamarck, welcome to the program.

Thank you for having me.

So, the 2024 presidential election is looking increasingly like it's going to be a rematch

between current President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.

How unusual is this to have a contest between a current sitting president and a former sitting president,

and that it's a repeat of 2020?

It's extremely unusual. Okay.

It has barely happened, maybe once, that a former president then ran for president again.

So, this is very unusual. We are in uncharted territory in so many ways.

Despite Trump's legal troubles, which he is facing, a lot of, his popularity just keeps on rising.

Why do you think that is?

I think a lot of people aren't paying attention to this, okay.

And they hear Trump Trump Trump.

Trump, by far gets more press than the President of the United States.

- Okay.
- That can't be good for President Biden.

No, it can't... Well, yes and no. I mean, Trump is getting...

think about what Trump is getting press for.

He's getting press for indictments against him. Okay.

He's getting press for having run his business empire fraudulently.

So that's what he's getting press for.

And I think people haven't quite understood that yet. They just hear Trump.

And so, they, they say, "Yes, Trump's the answer."

So, I think it's the Biden campaign's responsibility to remind people,

what was the Trump presidency like.

And how unable he was to handle a major national crisis of the pandemic.

And of course, everything he's done since then,

makes people think he is extremely unable to handle the presidency in the future.

What are voters thinking? What are they feeling?

Age is a big concern.

You've got two elderly candidates and two candidates that are not so popular.

Well, you know, now this is interesting.

People have drawn the inference.

When you ask, do you think Biden is too old to be president? They say yes.

If you asked me, a supporter of Biden, do I think he's too old? They say yes.

Would I rather have a younger candidate? Yes.

They're not asking, specifically, except in a few cases, Biden versus Trump.

When...right now, there's a lot of people operating in a fantasy world.

They think something's going to happen.

And somehow there's going to be a different nominee on the Republican side,

or a different nominee on the Democratic side.

What's the voter sentiment like?

- How are people feeling as we head into the election?
- I think they're very grumpy.

I think they don't like this choice. Right?

They're looking to be inspired.

I think some aspects of inflation are hitting them harder than others.

Groceries, for instance, food is very expensive, more expensive now than it was,

although other things like gasoline are coming down.

So, I think they're, I think the voters are grumpy, unhappy, a pox on both their houses. Right.

Which is not to say that they will not vote for Joe Biden.

That's what it ends up being.

They will look at Biden, who they think is old, and they don't much like him.

But then they'll look at Trump, who is also old, and who,

when he was president was not a steady hand on the tiller, as we say.

So, then what do you think are the similarities and the differences between 2020,

which was Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, and the likely rematch of 2024?

I think the similarities are that everybody knows these two people, right?

People know how they feel about Biden, they know how they feel about Trump.

If you go back to 2018, which Trump hand-managed the candidates.

In 2018, the Democrats won.

In 2020, they won.

In 2022, when Donald Trump was picking candidates, they won.

In the special elections in 2023, Democrats won.

I think the difference is there is a large Democratic base that gets larger every year.

Why? Because it's young.

There is a large Republican base that gets smaller every year.

Why? Because it's old.

That's a big difference.

There will be fewer votes.

We know from the census that in when we were redistricting in 2022,

rural congressional districts, which were Trump districts.

Guess what? They all shrank.

They all lost population, suburban and urban districts, which were swing or Biden, guess what?

They gained population.

So, you've got growth going on in the country,

in places that favor the Democrats and not the Republicans.

Given what you're saying, though, Trump still remains hugely popular within the Republican Party.

Why do you think that's the case? Why does he have such a big hold on the Republican Party?

It's the politics of anger and resentment.

It's people who think that they should be doing better than they are now.

And who are looking out for scapegoats.

And so, they're looking to scapegoat women.

They're looking to scapegoat immigrants; they're looking to scapegoat Black people.

They're looking for an excuse for what's not going right for them.

And they like the Donald Trump style.

You know, I mean, Lord knows, they wouldn't do like a lot of things that Trump would do.

And in fact, his budgets, when he was president, were really moved against his own base.

But they liked that style. It seems refreshing, right?

Because he says, let's face it, he says outrageous things.

He says things that most politicians would not say.

But President Biden isn't popular.

I mean, he's not doing well in the polls, particularly when it comes to the economy.

Why do voters think he's doing so badly in the economy?

I think because inflation really bothers voters.

So, think about it this way.

If you have high unemployment, say for America, 12% will be very high unemployment.

That still means that 88% of people have jobs.

They may be nervous about losing their jobs, but they have jobs.

Inflation hits everybody across the board.

So, when prices go up, everybody is affected -

rich people less so than poor people, middle class people get affected.

And I think that inflation is particularly damaging for the President of the United States.

And I think that's what has hit Biden.

So, what's it going to take for the Democratic Party to change this narrative and change voters' minds?

- Well, inflation is not going away and we are in 2024.
- We got to emphasize that inflation is coming down, you can see that at the gas station.

They need to show that. They need to talk about the things that they did to get inflation down,

because some of this, of course, was a holdover from the pandemic.

Some of this was supply chain related, etc.

And they worked very hard at straightening out the supply chains.

They are much better than they were.

So I think they've got to tell that story, you know,

tell the story of the things that they did,

to try and get inflation down, because that's what I think is the cause of most of this anger.

Yeah, inflation and the economy is absolutely a huge issue this election.

Are there any other big issues that you think

are really critical in this election year that are going to sway voters' minds?

Immigration. People are angry at Biden over immigration.

Biden needs to close the border.

And I'll be very frank on that.

We need to close the border,

- Which are really strong words as a Democrat.
- Very strong words as a Democrat, but I'll say them here.

You can't deal with the border backlog.

Unless you close the border.

And the Republicans have played a very cynical game.

They negotiated a bill that put resources in to try and deal with the border,

and then they refuse to let anybody vote on it.

That's very cynical.

It's because they knew that's their best issue.

That is a better issue than inflation, for the Republicans.

And they want to keep it at issue.

If in fact, they pass that bill.

And in fact, stir things started clearing up at the border,

by November, you might not have the same problem.

Just putting your hat back on, again, as someone that has worked on successful presidential campaigns.

Give me your thoughts on how you think former President Donald Trump

and his campaign team are running their campaign this year.

What are they doing well, what needs to be improved?

Well, they've done what they've done well.

They've buttoned down the machinery of the Republican Party.

They've put in place rules and procedures in the state Republican parties that works to Trump's advantage.

They've done a good job of that.

They've done a good job of turning his legal problems into political talking points

and trying to convince people who don't want to spend a lot of time thinking about this,

that, in fact, he's really, this is just all something Democrats cooked up.

I don't think he can sustain that past a conviction.

See, I think people are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt when he's being prosecuted.

But when he starts getting convicted when juries start saying, yes, you're guilty.

That means that some people thought he did some things that were seriously wrong.

That I think is going to be harder to sustain.

But it's worked well for him so far.

And I think he'll get the nomination probably fairly easily.

Okay.

A major issue, as we've talked about,

that seems to be plaguing the American public is this exhaustion,

from seeing the same thing we saw in 2020.

Mr. Trump versus Mr. Biden,

the idea of basically going through to be a repeat of the 2020 election this year.

Can you speak to that and how that might affect the upcoming election?

Well, there's two ways, right?

One way is you'd think, oh, maybe everybody's exhausted so they won't bother to vote.

I don't think that'll be the case.

2020 was an all-time high turnout.

You know, Trump goes out there. And he brags about more people voted for him than ever voted for a Republican candidate.

The problem is more people voted for Joe Biden.

I think there will be a turnout question.

I actually think that because of the polarization of the country,

because the hatred, and it really is hatred on each side for the other.

I think the turnout will be very, very high.

Very, very high.

And guess what, I think there's more Democrats than Republicans.

I think that's, that's what we've seen in every election now, going back to 2018.

In terms of the polarization, polls show that Americans believe the country today is more divided than it has ever been.

What's the reason behind that?

Oh, I think it's cultural. Okay.

I think it's cultural.

I think that urban America and suburban America to a certain extent,

has accommodated the changes in the demographics.

We have so many more people of color.

Younger people, younger people are 40%, the millennial generation 40% people of color.

That never happened in America.

The baby boomers was about 19%, so it's doubled.

So, I think there's a general feeling among some people, they tend to be older,

they tend to be white, and they tend to live in rural areas,

that the country is changing in ways they don't understand and they don't like.

People have different religions.

We're not just all Christians anymore. There's Muslims.

There's, there's lots and lots of other religions in America today.

I think it's a profound cultural change.

And I think in parts of the country, there's a fear and a hostility to other cultures.

So how do you think this divide that we're seeing in America will affect the future of US politics?

And, do you see any possibility of closing this divide of the two sides coming together?

The two sides won't come together, but one side will die.

And that's the way it ends, right? I mean, this is very...

Look, Donald Trump's base is old, it is very old.

He always wins 65 and older.

They're not around for a long time.

I include myself in that. Okay.

We're not around for a long time.

And when... as the younger generations take over, right?

I'm sure they'll have their differences.

This won't be one of them.

Elaine Kamarck, thank you so much for your time and your insights.

We really appreciate you in our show.

Great. I've enjoyed being here.

As the US presidential race heats up,

it's evident that Americans are likely to be confronted with a decision between two unpopular candidates.

Join us next time as we stay here in Washington to meet a Republican pollster

and get his views on the 2024 presidential election.

I'm Del Irani. Thanks for your company.

I'll see you next time on DEEPER LOOK.