News
3 surprises that could turn the 2024 election around
As everyone knows, the 2024 elections feature two geriatric candidates and unprecedented concerns about the physical and mental fitness of the country’s next president. Few Americans would be surprised if Donald Trump or Joe Biden, or both, dropped out of the race for health reasons.
Other factors that fewer people are thinking about could also disrupt the race and change the outlook for investors trying to gauge whether Democrat Joe Biden or Republican Donald Trump would be better for markets and the economy. Here are three of them:
A domestic terrorist attack
This is always a risk, but security authorities are now signaling unusually high levels of concern that a plot may be underway. There is special attention on the southwest border, where terrorists may try to infiltrate the country amid the wave of migrants who have appeared and tried to enter.
In April testimony before a House committee, FBI Director Christopher Wray said that over the past year, “we have seen the threat from foreign terrorists rise to an entirely different level.” This happened, he said, after Hamas attacked Israel last fall and Israel retaliated with an all-out war, suggesting the militants may be trying to punish the United States for supporting Israel. “It would be difficult to think of a time when so many threats to our public safety and national security were so heightened at the same time,” Wray warned.
In mid-June, eight people from Tajikistan allegedly affiliated with the Islamic State terrorist group were arrested in New York, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. The Associated Press reported that they entered the country through the southwest border. On June 16, Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) said the United States was in “its highest level of a possible terrorist threat.” On a recent article on Foreign RelationsGraham Allison and Michael Morell pointed out that these were the same types of warnings that public officials made before the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.
A bloody terrorist attack is one of the few things that could change the course of the election overnight. If it appeared that government negligence allowed terrorists to enter, it could doom President Joe Biden’s re-election bid. It could also have the opposite effect, with voters supporting Biden like they did with President George W. Bush in 2001.
Financial markets normally prevent terrorist attacks, but an attack linked to Islamic jihadists could easily trigger the wider war in the Middle East many analysts are worried. This would disrupt a record run for the US stock market and the gradual return of inflation to normal levels. The 2024 elections would stop being a referendum on Biden’s economy and become a question of which candidate has the best chance of extinguishing a world on fire.
The story continues
Trump’s sentence
from Trump Conviction on May 31 on 34 accusations of corporate fraud did not seem to change his position in the polls much. But that could change when a judge sets his sentence on July 11. “If Trump is sentenced to prison, perhaps it will give someone who is uncertain real pause,” political analyst Kristen Soltis Anderson said in a statement. recent videocast with researcher Bruce Mehlman. “Is America facing the prospect of putting a man in the White House who will also go to prison? This may be a harder pill to swallow for undecided voters.”
Former President Donald Trump leaves after speaking at a press conference in the lobby of Trump Tower one day after being found guilty of 34 felony counts of first-degree falsifying business records in Manhattan Criminal Court in New York, NY, on Friday, May October 31, 2024. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post via Getty Images) (The Washington Post via Getty Images)
Leave a note for Rick Newman, follow him on Twitteror sign up for your newsletter.
O judge’s punishment options range from nothing to several years behind bars. A compromise could be home detention, with Trump wearing an ankle bracelet so authorities know if he goes somewhere he shouldn’t. That would create the surreal spectacle of Republicans nominating Trump as their presidential nominee at the GOP convention in Milwaukee on July 18, even though Trump’s criminal sentence prevents him from attending in person. Republican authorities are reportedly making contingency plans for Trump to accept the nomination remotely, as a Zoom meeting participant.
A face-off debate – or a home run
Television debates can be decisive in heated presidential elections, as they are the only time many voters hear directly from each of the candidates. Strong debate performances and memorable lines helped John Kennedy win the White House as a challenger in 1960 and Ronald Reagan do the same in 1980. When Mitt Romney challenged incumbent Barack Obama in 2012, he jumped at the polls after a robust debate performance in early October. Obama emerged victorious in the last and final debate, recovering lost ground.
Trump and Biden have two debates scheduled, one on June 27th and the other on September 10th. It goes without saying that if either candidate suffers an embarrassing moment in front of millions of primetime viewers, it could be the end of their campaign. It could also happen the other way around, with, say, Biden making some clever and funny jokes, or Trump putting aside his familiar list of personal grievances and offering some new ideas for solving important problems. And once the second debate is over, all the two candidates will have to do is survive until election day on November 5th.
Rick Newman is a senior columnist for Yahoo Finance. Follow him on Twitter at @rickjnewman.
Read the latest financial and business news from Yahoo Finance