Between Now And November
There's a long way to go between now and Election Day. A lot will happen.
Joe Biden has consistently trailed in the polls for the coming presidential election. Democrats are distraught. “The economy is strong! Why do people think it’s not? Trump’s a menace! How can people favor that clown?”
Calm down.
I’m not going to say that Biden’s a shoo-in, but there’s a long way to go between now and Election Day.
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The president has an awful lot of tools at his disposal that can influence how the electorate feels. Biden, for example, is forgiving student loans, which is a massive government handout aimed at convincing young voters that Biden’s on their side. Biden has also ordered the sale of some government oil reserves, which should
slightly reduce the price of gasoline over time. And Biden can, of course, do more of these, or similar, things to improve his odds in the election.
Beyond that, foreign leaders can do things that will influence the election. I have no idea what will happen in the Middle East between now and November, but those events — whatever they are — will influence voters.
Other international issues may cut in different directions. Vladimir Putin, for example, surely prefers Trump in the presidential election. Trump’s policies almost uniformly favor Putin. Trump may well withdraw the United States from NATO, which would help Putin immensely. Trump does not want to send weapons to Ukraine, which again would benefit Putin. Trump says that he’d quickly negotiate an end to the war in Ukraine, which probably means freezing the warring sides in their current position — again, a boon to Putin. It’s likely that Putin will do something, either in Ukraine, directly, or through American social media, indirectly, that will tilt the election toward Trump.
Xi Jinping’s interests are a little harder to assess. Biden and Trump are competing over who can be tougher on China. Biden has raised tariffs on electric vehicles and related parts, but Trump raised tariffs during his administration and threatens to raise tariffs wholesale if he’s reelected. While he was in office, Trump also ramped up criticism of China’s policy toward the Uyghurs and ramped down U.S. engagement with China.
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As to Taiwan, it’s a little tricky to tell which presidential candidate China would favor. Biden continues to support Taiwan. Trump, when he was president, increased arms sales to Taiwan, but he also told a Republican senator in 2019 that “Taiwan is like two feet from China. … We are eight thousand miles away. If they invade, there isn’t a f—ing thing we can do about it.” Given Trump’s isolationism and “America first” predilection, China probably perceives Trump as less likely than Biden to aid Taiwan in case of attack.
If China wants to influence the American election, one path is easy: Now that the United States has imposed tariffs on some Chinese imports, China can reciprocally impose tariffs on American exports. And China isn’t stupid: China will consider industries that disproportionately affect the economies of swing states in 2024 — Arizona, Georgia, Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina — and aim its protectionist tariffs at those industries. If China favors Trump, expect China to impose those tariffs swiftly, to harm Biden. If China favors Biden, perhaps China will defer imposing those retaliatory tariffs until after the election.
All of those uncertainties, of course, are in addition to the inherent unpredictability of the presidential race: Will either of the two elderly candidates have a health issue in the coming months? How will the candidates perform in the debates? How will the public react to events in Trump’s criminal trials? And so on.
It’s hard to make predictions, especially about the future.
So I won’t make any.
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But I will say this definitively: Things will happen between now and November that will completely upset how you’re thinking about the presidential election.
Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and later oversaw litigation, compliance and employment matters at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Drug and Device Product Liability Litigation Strategy (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.
