Biden, Trump each pitch existential fear of the alternative to voters

To listen to the two leading candidates for the White House tell it, there’s much more on the line in November’s election than control of the executive branch.

President Biden has warned democracy, truth and the character of the nation is at stake in 2024. He has told donors a victory this November could very well save American democracy, underscoring the grave threat he believes former President Trump poses to U.S. institutions.

Trump, for his part, has used dystopian language to describe a nation teetering on the edge of destruction if Biden wins reelection. At one recent rally in Sioux Center, Iowa, Trump said the country was “dying” and “a mess” and claimed if Biden remains in office, immigration will become such a problem that “we’re not going to have a country.”

Democrats and Trump critics lambaste comparing the two messages in any way that elevates the risk of a second Biden term to those of a second Trump term. They cite Trump’s own words suggesting he’d be a dictator on day one and calling for prosecuting his opponents.

“There are some conservatives who are trying to make this claim that somehow Biden is a bigger risk than Trump,” former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) said on “The View” Wednesday. “My view is I disagree with a lot of Joe Biden’s policies. We can survive bad policies. We cannot survive torching the Constitution.”

But the intensity of the rhetoric from Biden and Trump gets at the reality that each side is seeking to motivate its base voters with grave warnings of what the future of the country would be under the alternative.

And the success of those messages could be critical assuming Trump wins the GOP nomination and faces Biden in the fall.

Such a contest would likely be close and largely could depend on turnout, strategists in both parties have long pointed out.

In both 2016 and 2020, several thousand voters across a handful of swing states ultimately decided the outcome of the election.

The Hill/Decision Desk HQ polling averages show Trump leading Biden in a hypothetical rematch in November by roughly 1 percentage point. Swing state polling has been mixed, with Biden leading Trump in Pennsylvania in a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday, and Trump leading Biden in Michigan in a Detroit News poll released this week.

And in an election where a large number of voters don’t want to elect Biden and Trump, convincing supporters to turn out because of the danger of the alternative could be key.

“There’s a limited pool for each side to go after,” said Sean Spicer, a former Trump White House press secretary. “One of the greatest motivators is fear.”

Biden’s campaign has embraced the idea that democracy itself is on the ballot in 2024, echoing the message that helped propel him to the White House in 2020. 

“As we begin this election year, we must be clear: Democracy is on the ballot. Your freedom is on the ballot,” Biden said in his first campaign speech of the year, delivered Jan. 5 in Pennsylvania.

“Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time,” he added. “And it’s what the 2024 election is all about.”

In South Carolina on Monday, Biden argued Trump and his supporters who push the false claim that the 2020 election was fraudulent are a danger to America’s basic values and to the concept of the truth.

“The truth is under assault in America,” Biden said in Charleston. “As a consequence, so is our freedom, our democracy, our very country because, without the truth, there is no light. Without light, there’s no path from this darkness.”

A Quinnipiac University poll of Pennsylvania voters released Wednesday underscored why Biden has leaned into such stark messaging. The poll found 44 percent of Democrats said their top issue in 2024 was preserving democracy, with no other issue reaching double digits.

An Associated Press-NORC poll released in December found 67 percent of voters said November’s election will be important to the future of democracy, ranking behind only the 75 percent who said it would be important for the economy.

Trump’s rhetoric, which has always been hyperbolic, has conversely painted a picture of a nation falling apart that cannot bear another four years without him in office.

“2024 is our final battle. It is our final battle. If we lose this battle, we lose our country,” Trump said at a recent rally in Iowa, adding the stakes of the election “could not be higher.”

Trump frequently describes Biden as “incompetent” and tells his supporters the nation’s borders are being overrun, inflation is skyrocketing and the U.S. is not respected on the world stage. He often tells supporters the country is “going to hell.”

“I don’t know how much more our nation can take.”

At a December rally in Nevada, Trump told supporters that, with their votes, “we are going to save America.”

The former president appears poised to tap into concerns about immigration among independents and Republican voters, both of which listed border security as their top issue in the Quinnipiac poll of Pennsylvanians.

Trump’s dark rhetoric about Democratic rule is familiar terrain for the former president. In his inaugural address in January 2017, Trump infamously described the “American carnage” that had left cities decaying and overrun with crime.

Biden has in some cases looked to turn Trump’s own rhetoric against him, arguing the former president’s language is not reflective of the American public.

“None of you believe America is failing. We know America is winning. That’s American patriotism,” Biden said to applause in Pennsylvania last week.

Political strategists acknowledged the risks in Biden’s approach in particular. They noted that because he’s the incumbent, there is more pressure on him to make a positive case for his candidacy rather than just offering warnings about his opponent.

But Democrats and even some Republicans said Biden’s rhetoric is rooted in concerns about what Trump himself has said should he regain power, giving it a heightened sense of urgency.

“We don’t really have to speculate about the kinds of things [Trump] wants to do during a second term because he’s saying these things. So if people are paying attention they’re aware of it,” said Sarah Matthews, a former Trump White House official who has spoken out about the risks Trump poses to democracy.

“I think that the people that he would need to win over most in a general election, those kinds of independent voters, they’re paying attention to these statements and they’re concerned,” she added.