Donald Trump, by contrast, announced his candidacy in November 2022, so long ago that it seemed like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) might be a viable challenger.
And now, with former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley’s (certainly belated) withdrawal from the race, the general election begins. We have more than 240 days until voting is completed, a long enough expanse for the U.K. to overhaul its Parliament nearly 10 times.
It will seem like a slog, certainly, since it generally already does. But thanks to Haley remaining in the race despite the inevitable outcome, 2024’s general election period won’t end up being unusually long. It’ll just feel like it.
I went back and looked at when significant opposition to the two major parties’ nominees dropped out of each race since 2000. In two of the previous six elections, the general election period has been about as long as it will be in 2024. One of those, 2004, was in part because there was an incumbent president, meaning that only one party really had a contested race in the first place.
One thing that’s different about 2024 — and which may contribute to a sense of drudgery over the long term — is that both major-party candidates have run before. This year will be a rerun of 2020, barring some catastrophe, meaning that the race will lack the sort of novelty that makes campaigning more compelling. Rather than learning something new about one of the candidates for the presidency, voters will probably more often be presented with reminders about things they might have forgotten. Perhaps because they were trying to.
We shouldn’t blur the reality here, though. Yes, this general election won’t be longer than those in 2000 or 2004. But it will be one with familiar candidates, unfolding in a media environment that operates in seconds, not days (as was the case 20 years ago). A general election that was 244 days long in 2004 was one in which 244 new disruptions could emerge; maybe twice that if you count morning and afternoon news reports.
A general election that is 244 days long in the post-social-media world is a general election that is functionally 58,000 years long. So save your energy. You’re going to need it.