Biden’s Presidential Race May Have Just Ended Before It Began

Readers of our flagship publication Strategic Intelligence have seen the October 2023 issue that takes a deep dive into the 2024 presidential campaign.

We were not trying to be cute running this article a year ahead of the actual election. Normally, that would be ridiculous timing. It’s extremely difficult to forecast elections just a few months ahead of Election Day, let alone a full year. But we made the point that this year is different.

Joe Biden’s mental disabilities, Donald Trump’s legal jeopardy, and the leadership dysfunction in the House of Representatives among many other issues are causing the presidential election to come to a head early. Events are playing out today, including Democratic efforts to throw Joe Biden under the bus and legal efforts to throw Donald Trump in jail that may determine the nominees and possible winners before we even get to the primary season.

One of those early but major trends is the rise of third-party candidates. As reported here, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a lifelong Democrat and member of a family whose name is practically synonymous with the Democratic Party, has left the party and announced he will be running for president as an independent in 2024.

Kennedy has been running for the Democratic nomination but was marginalized and treated with contempt by his own party. Biden refuses to debate (he can’t anyway because he’s too senile) so Kennedy was denied that platform. The Democratic National Committee (DNC) rigged the primary schedule to move South Carolina (where Biden has substantial support) ahead of New Hampshire, where Biden finished fifth in 2020 and where Kennedy is well-known.

New Hampshire decided to go first anyway at which point the DNC said any candidate who even sets foot in New Hampshire will be denied any delegates he might win at the ballot box. Again, this was designed to squash the Kennedy campaign.

Finally, and reprehensibly, the White House has denied Secret Service protection to Kennedy even though his father (senator and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy) and uncle (President John F. Kennedy) were both assassinated.

Kennedy decided enough is enough and is going independent. He will likely run on the Libertarian Party line. He’s not the only one. Academic and Professor Cornell West is running on the Green Party ticket, and Senator Joe Manchin may decide to run on the No Labels Party line.

These are not the marginal third-party candidates from recent elections who usually get only 1% to 2% of the vote (although even that can change outcomes; Green Party candidate Jill Stein got only 1% of the vote in 2016 but may have cost Hillary Clinton the election by denying her victory in some extremely close swing states). Polls show Kennedy could bring as much as 33% of the Democratic voters with him and a substantial number of Republicans.

Cornell West may get as much as 5% of the vote and Joe Manchin is a popular moderate who may get 10% of the vote. Collectively, this could be the biggest third-party challenge since Teddy Roosevelt in 1912.

Those kinds of numbers won’t just cost Biden the election. They will bury him. That’s why Democrats are working furiously behind the scenes to ditch Biden. This drama will take its course. The point is we won’t have to wait for November 2024 for election insights – the big news is happening now.

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