Although election day is still eight months away, it’s already been made clear that the 2024 Presidential Race will be one to remember. With former President Donald J. Trump facing ninety-one criminal charges and being taken off of primaries in Colorado, Maine, and Illinois, Nikki Haley losing to “none of these candidates” in a Nevada ballot before dropping out of the race entirely, and President Biden attempting to serve a second term at the ripe age of eighty-one years, it seems as though the country is in a state of political disarray. With this in mind, a question that Americans must ask themselves is does Biden still have a shot at coming back for a second term?
Given the fact that climate change is still one of the most hot-topic issues facing the world today, allow us to attempt to answer this question through an environmental lens.
One of the backbones of Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign was his climate policies. In an article published by The Washington Post in December of 2020, reporters Brady Dennis and Juliet Eilperin analyzed that Biden’s biggest goals with regards to the environment during his campaign were to rejoin the Paris Climate Agreement, which President Trump backed out of in June of 2017, to put the country on track to be a net-zero carbon emitter by 2050, and to stop the expansion of drilling on public land. These were the key issues that Biden targeted, which served him well as he was able to receive over 65% of the votes of 18-24 year olds, the same demographic that is most concerned about climate change affecting them. With this in mind, the incumbent will likely have a tough time garnering support from Gen Z as a result of some of the actual decisions made during his presidency.
According to Pew Research roughly 70% of Gen Z view climate change as the most serious global issue, lots of stress has been placed on Biden and his ability to address their concerns. After rejoining the Paris Climate Agreement before his first day in office had even come to an end, the president brought hope to young Americans, the people who showed overwhelming support for him in the first place. But it seems as though this support was short-lived. Less than one month ago global warming exceeded 1.5 degrees Celsius, and as a result, the BBC reports that “extreme heat waves, droughts, wildfires, and floods” are occurring at unprecedented rates.
As one of the leading influences of arguably the most powerful country in the history of the world, President Biden has taken lots of criticism for his failures to address the concerns that he emphasized so heavily during his campaign. This is particularly because one of the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, as elaborated by the United Nations itself, is to “pursue efforts to limit [global temperature increases] to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels,” something that the world has recently failed to ensure. Earlier this year, Vox, a left-leaning news outlet, conceded to the fact that “President Joe Biden isn’t just in trouble with dissatisfied young voters,” but that in 2024 there is a possibility that his adversary, Donald J. Trump, “could do better with young voters than any other Republican candidate of the modern era.” Of course, the polls are unable to predict the future, but they are able to give Americans a strong idea of how candidates stack up against each other – and what the tentative data suggests is that Biden might not be stacking up as well as he would like.
The reason that young American voters are worried about Biden and his climate policies isn’t just because the world at large is having trouble addressing global warming, but it’s also because Biden is failing to preserve the environment domestically. On March 13, 2023, the Biden Administration approved the Willow Project, a federal drilling plan to extract oil from Alaska’s North Slope and its extensive wetlands. While Biden voters are disappointed in the president’s decision to approve of the project, they are even more concerned about the fact that the president seemed to have flat out lied to them. During a New Hampshire Town Hall congregation held February 9, 2020, just eleven months before taking office, the soon-to-be-president promised American voters that the government would participate in “no more drilling on federal land, period. Period, period, period.” However, Just four months ago, U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason ruled that Biden’s Willow Project may proceed, rejecting concerns brought forth by environmental groups that “ConocoPhillips,” one of the largest oil production companies in the world, “didn’t adequately consider [the project’s] contribution to climate change” and the effect that drilling would have on wildlife in the area, according to NPR. In fact, the Willow Project is estimated to result in the decimation of 500+ acres of Alaskan wetlands, 600+ acres of polar bear habitats, and to release 260 million metric tons of greenhouse gasses directly into the atmosphere.
In understanding all of this information, Americans must ask themselves: how are Biden’s reelection odds?
Of course, I’m far from an American political expert, but I’ll try my best to base my conclusions in the truth and in the evidence. Unfortunately for me, the evidence at this time is wildly unclear.
As of March 14, Donald J. Trump is still facing ninety-one felony counts, any of which could result in prison time, and recently lost a $500 million civil lawsuit in the state of New York. He was temporarily removed from primary ballots under the disqualification clause of the 14th Amendment before the Supreme Court ruled just two weeks ago in Trump v. Anderson that Colorado did not have the authority to remove the former president from their primaries.
Clearly, Biden’s biggest opponent is in as much if not more trouble than he is amongst the American people. As both Trump and Biden are struggling to garner significant support amongst the general population, holes have been filled by independent candidates. Specifically, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has taken the country by surprise. The former Democrat is expected to be a strong contender in the upcoming election, and while most polls don’t project him to win the presidency, he certainly will steal votes from both Donald Trump and Joe Biden. Quinnipiac polls expect RFK Jr. to take 11 points from Biden, as compared to only 8 from Trump. In such a close election, every single point matters. If Quinnipiac’s projections are correct, then Trump will win the 2024 race by a mere two to five points so long as Kennedy Jr. stays on the ballot.
In upcoming months, paying close attention to the dynamic political landscape in America will be absolutely necessary. The election has reached a tipping point. Any slip-up from Biden could result in Trump serving his second term. Prison time or additional charges against the former president might just bring the incumbent to victory. Increasing dissatisfaction with the two front-runners has the potential to push Kennedy Jr. into the Oval Office. If anything has been made clear in recent months, it’s that nothing is clear. Just about anybody could win the presidency.
The Bishop Kelly Newspaper 