With the rise of Kamala Harris in the opinion polls, some Democrats see the confidence and worry: Will 2024 be a 2016 election repeat?
During the 2016 election campaign, Hillary Clinton was considered the favorite to win. Despite both candidates having high negative ratings, Democrats were confident that someone like Donald Trump could not win a national election. Opinion polls suggested that Clinton was in realistic position to become the first female president.
Of course, this did not happen. Trump lost the popular vote, but as we all know, the popular vote does not matter. He won narrow victories in many key states, allowing him to exceed 270 electoral votes and become the 45th president. Democrats were stunned, and soon enough, the finger-pointing began.
Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential election was a long time coming. Some suspected he would not run at all, but when he did, he was never destined for re-election. Democratic poll numbers slipped, especially after a disastrous debate performance. By the end of July, Kamala Harris was the new Democratic torch-bearer, and untapped enthusiasm made a comeback to their campaign. The pick of Tim Walz as running mate further endeared Democratic voters, making them think that what seemed like an inevitability – a second Trump term – could be avoided.
So, it is only natural that some out there in Democratville think “this is a 2016 election repeat” or “we are going to make the same mistakes.” This may also translate to “we are getting overconfident, and will get complacent, so we could blow it.” However, the parallels between 2016 and 2024 do not line up cleanly. In fact, there are several ways in which these two election cycles are very different.
Why This Is Not a 2016 Election Repeat
1: Donald Trump has been running for president for nine years.
Trump’s famed escalator ride was on June 16, 2015. This article was written in August 2024, over nine years later. He has been running for president, either as a candidate or an incumbent, for almost the entire period since then. Trump has also been litigating the 2020 election results in the court of public opinion for the past three and a half years.
In 2016, when he made his first run for the presidency, in some ways, he was a novelty candidate. Some sounded warning bells, but others did not take him seriously as an option. After what some might describe as a surprise victory, the seriousness set in for many Americans. (A few may forget that Donald Trump actually caught up to Clinton in some final national polls, so it was not as surprising as it could have been.)
Now, in 2024, he is as well-known as any political figure in the modern era. It is hard to believe that anyone in the public has no opinion of him at this point. Nevertheless, there are surely a few, but just a few. This is an eternity in politics for a candidate seeking the nation’s highest office.
It is very rare for a political party to nominate the same candidate three times; Richard Nixon was the previous, and then William Jennings Bryan before him. The Republicans have done it here and now, and if there is a Trump fatigue, it might not have existed in 2016, but definitely could in 2024.
2: Democratic enthusiasm is higher than 2016 (and 2020).
We will cite three polls for this point. First, from 2016, we have the results of ABC News & Washington Post polls on “strong enthusiasm” levels from voters. Second, it’s a Pew Research Center poll on “voter satisfaction with presidential candidates.” Third, we have a new Gallup poll from 2024 measuring “election enthusiasm” among Republican and Democratic voters.
ABC News/Washington Post noted in late October 2016 that Trump voters were at 53 percent enthusiasm levels, compared to just 45 percent enthusiasm among Clinton supporters. Trump led in that category for most of the Fall campaign.
The Pew poll found that 43 percent of Democrats and 40 percent of Republicans were at least somewhat satisfied with their options on the ballot in 2016. For comparison, in 2008, 72 percent of Democrats were, which is the same percentage of Republicans in 2004 as with George W. Bush.
In the current Gallup poll, Democratic enthusiasm is at 78 percent, while Republican enthusiasm is at 64 percent. Trump’s value was slightly higher than 64 in 2020 and much lower in 2016. Clinton’s was far lower in 2016 than the numbers for Harris, and Joe Biden did not eclipse 70 percent in 2020. Regarding the enthusiasm for Biden, it is not unfair to say plenty of Democrats were motivated to vote against Trump in 2020 more than anything else. They could have nominated a sweet potato four years ago and Democratic enthusiasm would have been around 70 percent.
Per Gallup, the closest comparable election cycle of enthusiasm among Democrats is 2008, a year in which they won a landslide.
Some in the Democratic pessimists’ camp might say that even bringing up Obama’s 2008 enthusiasm is part of the reason they are worried, because 2016 happened as well and shattered their worlds. The 2008 and 2016 presidential elections are incomparable. The 2016 and 2024 elections also do not have many things in common. Finally, there are some parallels to 2008, but 2008 and 2024 are not the same, either. 2024 is its own campaign with its own unique factors.
3: Kamala Harris has lower negatives than Hillary Clinton (and Donald Trump).
At the tail end of the 2016 election campaign, according to an aggregation by Statista, Hillary Clinton’s average approval rating was 42.3 percent, and her average disapproval was 54.4 percent. (Please note that these figures excluded those unsure, so the truth may not have looked exactly like the above.)
Meanwhile, at present in 2024, according to FiveThirtyEight, Kamala Harris’s approval is at 42.5 percent, but her disapproval is at 48.4 percent. The numbers have converged since she declared her candidacy. Whereas Clinton had double-digit net negatives, Harris is in the single digits and falling. Harris does not have the best approval ratings ever by any stretch, but her trajectory is up.
As we noted in another piece while Biden was still a candidate, Trump’s negatives have been high and static for years.
4: Democrats are not behaving like a complacent party.
Sometimes, shared difficulties bring people together and motivate them not to repeat the same mistakes. Both parties in 2016 had unpopular candidates, but one candidate’s supporters turned out better in swing states. Some Clinton supporters may have found it unthinkable that Trump could win, even though there were signs that he might. Apathetic Democrats may or may not have stayed home in 2016 because they thought the election was in the bag, but many voters did not like either candidate.
Democrats are turning out in big numbers to Harris-Walz rallies. They are signing up thousands of new volunteers and canvassing. There is also a push among Democrats to register new voters and check registration status. This does not look like a political party that suddenly expects to win the election and is therefore ready to go on cruise control. It is because of what happened in 2016 that many Democrats are not willing to let up their momentum and enthusiasm.
Clinton’s campaign was accused of complacency. One criticism after the 2016 election was that Hillary Clinton “did not go to Wisconsin,” but Kamala Harris did that literally in her first rally. Not to mention, she barnstormed through the battleground states with Walz. This is not a campaign that is sitting back and waiting for the votes to roll in – they are aggressively chasing them.
A 2016 Election Repeat? That’s No Guarantee
Donald Trump is capable of winning the 2024 election, despite the Harris surge. Yes, opinion polls have gone south for the GOP candidate, but the race is far from over. Democrats recognize this.
However, to the extent that it exists, Democratic panic that Kamala Harris will turn out just like Hillary Clinton in 2016 is in some ways unfounded. Harris has several advantages that Clinton did not, and aside from that, her opponent has been running for almost a decade and has not improved on his personal popularity at all. These two campaigns are not the same, and a great deal has happened in America and the world since 2016. This country is not the same as then. The paths to November do not have to be the same, either.
