Juan Williams: Who’s laughing at Biden now?

President Biden is slated to announce his 2024 campaign after the holidays.

He is going to need a winning slogan. 

I’ve got it.

“Slow and Steady.”

Boring, you say.

You are thinking like Donald Trump. 

Remember, the former president thought “Sleepy Joe” was a killer put-down when he faced Biden in the 2020 campaign. Trump lost by millions of votes.

Meanwhile, Biden keeps winning.

Arnon Mishkin, the Fox polling analyst, mentioned “Slow and Steady” as a slogan last summer after Biden’s success in passing nearly all his legislative agenda. 

“Slow and Steady” isn’t catchy, I complained.

With polls dancing in his head, Mishkin said the numbers showed voters wanted the opposite of the chaos, midnight tweets, and juvenile name calling common throughout the Trump presidency. 

Americans still want a “Slow and Steady” president — someone who gets things done and offers a reassuring presence. As the midterms approached, Mishkin listed Biden’s negatives and positives with voters and said Democrats were missing the obvious in not playing to Biden’s strengths.

I foolishly dismissed the conversation as the knotty product of a numbers guy’s mind. At the time, Biden’s poll numbers remained low and a red wave in the midterms was widely predicted.

Last week, I apologized.

Yes, Arnon, “Slow and Steady” now looks very good.

With Biden as their leader, Democrats gained a seat in the Senate. They also picked up control of two governors’ mansions and four state legislative houses — two in Michigan.

They did lose their majority in the House. But, with one race yet to be called, the GOP will gain 10 seats at most. Those Democratic defeats are far below the 25-seat average loss for the party in the White House since 1994. There was no red wave.

Biden looks so good at year’s end that conservative Republican champion Newt Gingrich wrote on his website that the GOP “must learn to quit underestimating Biden.” 

Gingrich’s column also drew parallels between Biden and two iconic GOP Presidents, Eisenhower and Reagan — leaders who were put down by their political opponents but proved to be consistent winners. The former Speaker described Biden as the Democrats’ “almost inevitable” nominee for president in 2024.

On the left, Biden’s past year is described in New York Magazine with the headline “Joe Biden’s Actually Not-At-All-Bad Year.”

That grudging assessment is now accepted wisdom among top Democrats.

With California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s (D) declaration that he is backing Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination, there is no serious challenge to Biden’s run for a second term.

Add in the Democratic National Committee’s proposed shuffle of the 2024 primary calendar at Biden’s direction — moving South Carolina to the front of the process and giving new prominence to Michigan and Georgia — and Biden wins again.

Primary voters in those states, especially Black voters, saved Biden’s campaign in 2020 and put him on a path to the nomination. Now, they are a wall of protection to ensure he stays the nominee in 2024. 

But what about the general election? 

Well, the only major declared Republican candidate is Trump.

Biden already beat Trump by over 7 million votes — and by a 306-232 margin in the electoral college. 

A Marquette University Law School poll conducted last month found Biden leading Trump by ten points and tied with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (R) among registered voters. 

“Slow and Steady” Biden already has a strong record to show to voters in the 2024 general election.

Biden passed major bipartisan legislation to fix our nation’s decrepit infrastructure. Another bill helps U.S. manufacturers compete with China. With the narrowest of Democratic majorities in the Senate, he won legislation lowering the cost of prescription drugs. And let’s not forget he put the COVID-19 pandemic largely in the rearview mirror.

For female voters and Black voters, he can say he put the first Black woman on the Supreme Court, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. More than half the members of his cabinet — 13 of 25 — are women. A similar number identify as members of a minority group.

Mr. “Slow and Steady” has more wins coming.

As Congress wraps up a lame duck session this month, he is poised to sign a bill protecting same-sex marriage and interracial marriage.

He is also likely to get additional congressional funding to help Ukraine fight the war against Russia. 

With a steady hand, he has kept U.S. troops out of war while holding NATO allies together against Russian aggression.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is another loser to the “Slow and Steady” Biden. 

Not bad for a man derided by critics as a mentally challenged 80-year-old who sometimes stutters. Some still dismiss him as “Sleepy Joe.”

I can’t wait to see the old guy, Mr. “Slow and Steady,” defy more low expectations in his next two years as president. 

Who knows, we might be talking about six more years?

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.