Biden New Year’s resolutions: What 2024 holds for the president

For President Joe Biden, 2024 will present a test like no other as he contests what is likely to be his last election and tries to avoid becoming a one-term commander in chief.

But after contending with a range of domestic and foreign policy challenges in 2023, his New Year’s resolutions will have to include changing his economic messaging and mitigating the Russia–Ukraine and Israel–Hamas wars if he wants to secure a historic four more years in office.

BIDEN BEAT TRUMP ‘CHAOS’ IN 2020 — NOW NIKKI HALEY WANTS TO DO THE SAME

Biden, 81, has traversed personal and political highs and lows during 2023, from declaring an end to the federal government’s COVID-19 pandemic health emergency and traveling to war-torn Ukraine to having to shoot down a Chinese spy balloon and his son Hunter being indicted over gun and tax crimes. But as he seeks reelection as the country’s oldest president, he has to address the economy, with his economic policies known as Bidenomics, and two foreign conflicts, according to Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg.

“There are two things that are most important for him now: It’s for the economy to stay strong and for the conflicts in the Middle East and in Ukraine to feel like they’re successful,” Rosenberg told the Washington Examiner. “Those are the big ones for him next year.”

Rosenberg said it is “indisputable that the economy’s in strong shape,” predicting that “will start to accrue its benefit politically” for Biden “in the coming months,” despite the prospect of another government shutdown in January. The consumer price index only increased by 0.1% between October and November, with an annual inflation rate of 3.1%, but the cost of food and interest rates remain elevated.

“The administration … will be freed to be more aggressive about making their case on the economy,” Rosenberg said. “The administration is going to be on much more of a front foot in making their case that he’s been a good president, the country is better off, and he deserves reelection.”

Simultaneously, Biden’s average job approval-disapproval rating is net negative 17 percentage points, 39% to 56%, according to FiveThirtyEight. That is lower than one-term Presidents Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Donald Trump at the same point in their respective administrations.

Biden’s poor poll numbers are poised to complicate the president’s 2024, exacerbated by his age, the “chaos” at the southern border, and, as Rosenberg alluded to, the cost of living for many people, according to Cesar Conda, former chief of staff to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL).

“Biden isn’t going to get any younger, but he could do something about border security and the cost of living,” said Conda, a founding partner of Republican lobbying firm Navigators Global. “But agreeing to tough border security and asylum reforms will upset his liberal, open-borders base voters. Reducing inflation requires cutting government spending and reopening domestic energy production and supply, which runs counter to everything he’s done in the past three years.”

“For Biden to have a good 2024, he is going to have to make a resolution to stop listening to the hard Left of his party and go back to the moderate views he espoused when in the Senate,” he added.

Conda’s perspective is not simply Republican talking points, because a majority of the public does have a negative perception of Biden’s performance and is dissatisfied with the direction of the country, according to University of Wisconsin-Madison political science professor and Elections Research Center director Barry Burden.

“Some of his core supporters, such as young and nonwhite voters, are showing serious reservations about backing him again because of his age and handling of the Middle East conflict,” Burden said. “His campaign will need to communicate his administration’s accomplishments and draw a contrast with Donald Trump as a person unfit to serve as president.”

Republicans, even 2024 GOP presidential primary front-runner Trump, have helped Biden and other Democrats with that comparison thanks to, for example, the former president’s legal problems and House Republicans’ inability to elect a speaker twice in 10 months. But Republicans have experienced some of their own success, criticizing Biden through their recently formalized impeachment inquiry into his family’s business dealings amid the federal investigation into allegations he mishandled classified documents and son Hunter’s own legal entanglements.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

But the Biden campaign is confident the president and Vice President Kamala Harris will continue building a winning bid that underscores “the enormous stakes” regarding “our personal freedoms, our economy, and our democracy,” spokesman Seth Schuster said.

“Next year, you’ll see a campaign laser-focused on the real issues that matter to the American people and aggressive efforts to meet voters where they are — undistracted from the beltway pundits who’ve counted us out before,” Schuster said.