One of four commentaries from the 16 October 2024 event in the Panel Discussion Series: American Election 2024, from The Finsbury Institute, City International Policy Studies, and the Research Group on Global (Dis)Order.
By Andrew Payne
Our topic today assumes that there is a strong connection between elections and foreign policy. But most pollsters and observers tend to agree that this connection is pretty weak. In fact, the conventional wisdom is that presidential campaigns are about "the economy, stupid" – domestic politics, and not foreign policy, is what matters.
Today, I'd like to explain why I think the conventional wisdom is wrong.
There is a kernel of truth in the idea that specific foreign policy issues aren't a big determinant of votes. The public doesn't know very much about foreign policy, and they care even less. In fact, according to a survey by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, nearly 60 percent of voters say that the economy and inflation will greatly shape their choice in November, whereas fewer than 20 percent say the same about the wars in Gaza and Ukraine.
But these polls obscure the fact that foreign policy doesn't need to swing many votes to have a decisive impact on the election. Voters may not have highly developed views about trade policy or multilateralism, but ongoing wars are the kinds of things that cause at least some voters to sit up and pay attention. And in 2024, those voters may be concentrated in electorally significant places – for example in states like Michigan, where around 100,000 voters cast "uncommitted" ballots in the Democratic primaries in protest at the Biden administration’s handling of the war in Gaza. This is a state that Biden won by 150,000 in 2020 and Trump won by only 11,000 in 2016. These are small margins, but they could be the margins that matter.
There's also a more fundamental point here: polls that ask about voters about specific foreign policy issues misrepresent the way most voters evaluate which candidate would be the more effective commander-in-chief. In reality, as Jeff Friedman has convincingly shown, voters want to elect leaders who they feel will do a good job of standing up for America's interests. Candidates who project an image of toughness or strength are often able to reap electoral reward for embracing positions on foreign policy.
History is littered with examples of candidates who talked a big game, without providing details of their foreign policy intentions – from Eisenhower’s declaration that he would “go to Korea” in 1952 to Nixon’s “secret plan” in Vietnam. Today, we see echoes of this – and Trump seems to have the edge, with a recent survey of battleground states conducted by the Institute for Global Affairs showing that Trump holds an eight-point lead on the strong leadership question.
Finally, as I argue in my own book, even if the outcome of the 2024 election doesn't turn on Ukraine or Gaza, you can be sure that the White House is thinking about the political risks of foreign policy as the election approaches. From Harry Truman to Lyndon Johnson to Jimmy Carter, presidents know that foreign policy presents serious political risks on the campaign trail. These pressures have routinely led incumbents to adjust timing and nature of critical military decisions to account for the pressures of the political calendar.
In some cases, that's led presidents to dial up the aggressiveness of a proposed course of action. In other cases, it's led them to pursue more risk-averse policies. But probably the most interesting dynamic here is the way in which an upcoming election can undermine a president's ability to engage in diplomacy - even if their name is not on the ballot. As Biden is discovering as he struggles to contain conflict in the Middle East, an upcoming election provides both allies and adversaries with incentives to pay close attention to what other candidates are saying before bowing to pressure from a here-today, gone-tomorrow president.
