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2024: Year of the 3rd Party Candidate?
An increasing dissatisfaction with both major parties could be fueling a significant third-party candidacy.
“Biden Knew Carter Was in Trouble in 1979,” wrote Annie Linskey for the Wall Street Journal on December 28, 2023. “Now He’s in the Same Boat.”
It was a sobering reminder for the Democratic Party on the cusp of an important election year.
“Both presidents faced inflation and foreign-policy challenges as they sought a second term,” recalled Linskey. “When an unpopular Democratic incumbent president was struggling to build support for a second term, a young Delaware senator floated the idea that the party consider other options for the top of the ticket.”
“‘That man’s in trouble, politically in trouble,’ Joe Biden said of then-President Jimmy Carter in July 1979, according to an account at the time in the Wilmington Evening Journal,” Linskey reminded readers of the WSJ.
“Now Biden is himself in the White House and stumbling in some of the same ways as Carter as he sets out to win a second term,” concluded Linskey. “Both men struggled to sell legislative victories and retain the party’s core voters as high inflation and foreign-policy disasters eroded their support.”
In worse news for President Biden, 2024 may be shaping up to be the year 3rd party…