Biden’s Overlooked Advantage

With Biden’s low poll numbers and Americans’ negative views of the economy, it comes as no surprise that media pundits are already entertaining the idea of a Trump victory in 2024. 

To be sure, a substantial amount of Biden’s lagging approval is coming from his own party: since 2022, between 15% and 22% of Democrats have neglected to voice approval for Biden. But on Election Day, these dissatisfied Democrats — and many independents as well — will likely look at Biden a little differently when the prospect of another Trump presidency is looming large.

A second caveat is that inflation is consistently coming down. This trend suggests that Americans’ perceptions of the economy (which are bad) may soon come into better alignment with actual economic conditions (which, by historical standards, are quite good).

But an even more fundamental point is being overlooked. Put simply, the fact that Biden has been in office for one term matters. A lot.

History Repeating? The Case of 2012

In September of 2011, then-President Barack Obama was struggling. His approval was virtually identical to Biden’s current approval, hovering around 40%. Views of the economy were overwhelmingly negative, and polls found Obama losing to one of the then-front-running Republican contenders, Mitt Romney. On the eve of the 2012 election, at least one respected poll had Romney narrowly leading Obama. 

It seemed clear that Americans were ready for a change.

Of course, change is not what happened. Obama handily won the two-party vote share by about 4 percentage points.

Given political scientists’ research on U.S. presidential elections, no one should have been surprised by this outcome. Why? Because in 2012 Obama was the incumbent president, just as Biden will be in 2024.

The Power of Incumbency

Every presidential election seems unique, but the data don’t lie. My recent research looks at all presidential elections since 1952. Despite all the different candidates, national priorities, international challenges, economic conditions, etc. over the past 71 years, incumbent candidates have won the popular vote a remarkable 78% of the time. These incumbent candidates have averaged 54.5% of the total votes going to the two parties — a massive 9 percentage-point average advantage over their non-incumbent challengers.

This is not to say that incumbency is the only thing that matters; after all, 2020 saw the incumbent lose the popular vote by 4 percentage points. But given the historic unusualness of that election (the COVID-19 pandemic, skyrocketing unemployment, unprecedented controversies surrounding Trump, etc.), 2020 may be better viewed as an exception that proves the rule.

Indeed, the 2020 and 1980 elections are the only two exceptions to the rule of incumbent victory since 1952 (excluding Bush Sr. in 1992 which, though only his first term, was the Republican Party’s third term in office). The lesson is clear: While it is not quite a “guarantee,” incumbency confers an unequivocal advantage.

Isolating Incumbency’s Effect

Political scientists have long known about the power of incumbency when using statistical analyses to forecast election results. But why should it matter?

There is a variety of potential reasons, but my research — which also employed an online experiment featuring several thousand U.S. citizens — shows that a majority of Americans — Democrats, independents, and Republicans alike — simply believe that incumbents should generally be elected for a second term. In short, a president serving only one term (when they are legally allowed to serve two) just doesn’t seem to sit right with many Americans.

Existence of such a norm in U.S. politics has a huge implication: Simply knowing that a candidate is an incumbent should be enough to nudge a substantial share of voters toward voting for that candidate. 

Indeed, by isolating candidates’ incumbency status from all other considerations (name recognition, the economy, etc.), this is precisely what my experiment finds. Compared to when their incumbency status is not specified, candidates who are identified as the sitting president see an increase of 5.6 percentage-points in vote share. By the standards of modern presidential elections, that is a game-changing bump.

In sum, presidential elections do not ask voters whether they like the sitting president.  Instead, they ask voters whether they like the sitting president more than the president’s opponent. Failure to appreciate this difference leads pundits to regularly predict incumbents’ political doom, despite how often incumbents have won reelection over the past 71 years and despite the intrinsic power that incumbency appears to hold.

To be sure, Biden has weaknesses. So did Obama in 2012. But the asset they shared — incumbency — should not be overlooked. Media’s focus on Biden’s weaknesses might be good for getting clicks, but it ignores his crucial strength.

John V. Kane (@UptonOrwell ) is an associate professor at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University. He teaches graduate courses on analytical skills, data analysis, and political psychology. His research has been published in leading political science journals, including the American Political Science Review, American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics and Public Opinion Quarterly, among others. His research has also been featured in The New York Times, Washington Post, and National Public Radio.