‘Thanks for the mess, Uncle Joe’: Joe Biden reminded of ‘consequences’ after whispers of his belief he would have beaten Donald Trump get out

As America prepares for the ascension of Trump to the White House for his second run as President, many people can’t help but think about what could have been — including outgoing president, Joe Biden.

Thinking back to the official start of the electoral race, it looked like a rerun of the 2020 election: Trump vs. Biden, except this time with Biden in the Oval Office. It’s reasonable to feel that the outcome could have been the same: a win for Biden and the Democrats, and this time with Trump and his MAGA following finally driven off.

Ending the Trump threat and the Trumpification of American politics was one of the main focus of Biden’s administration, in addition to more prosaic concerns like the economy, and a return to respectful, consensus politics. Biden and the Democrats had good reasons to feel positive: under Biden, the economy grew faster than under Trump, and America recovered from the dreadful days of Covid better than some peer economies. Things were on the up, and that would surely translate to electoral success.

That didn’t happen!

Most people in America are aware of the disastrous debate between Biden and Trump, where Biden’s performance was less than stellar. Biden’s poor performance played into Trump’s narrative, and whether or not Trump was himself guilty of the things he claimed about Biden, whether he was himself making false statements and non-sequiturs, simply didn’t matter.

Low polling numbers followed the debate and Biden bowed out of the presidential race. In the days that followed, the Democrats scrambled to find a replacement, choosing Vice President Kamala Harris. There are many on both America’s left and right who think that Biden should have been replaced sooner — or that he shouldn’t have entered the race at all. In its end-of-term retrospective on Biden’s presidency, The Washington Post references aides and sources close to Biden who suggest that the outgoing president has another opinion entirely. Instead, he reportedly believes that if he’d stayed in the race, he would have won the election.

Reactions to the news across social media that Biden thinks he would have won are hugely varied across the political spectrum. Some on X lay the blame directly on Biden, with one user thanking him for “the mess” his decision to run caused, and others reminding of the consequences of his decision:

Some X users suggested that America was “never meant” to vote for a woman, and that Biden would have beaten Trump. It feels premature to suggest that America is one of the few mature democracies simply incapable of electing a woman to the highest office, and evidently Kamala Harris agrees, as she intends to run in 2028. Still, it’s not inconceivable that some voters were put off.

Although careful not to blame Kamala Harris for the loss, the Biden team reportedly believes he would have won. It’s the kind of counterfactual that can never be proven, as there’s simply no data. The Harris campaign can be analyzed, voters can be questioned, trends can be looked at. Perhaps Biden could have beaten Trump again, maybe Harris could have won, possibly a third option would have knocked it out of the park. We’ll never know. In the end, Donald Trump is back at the White House.