Chuck Todd: The missing ingredient to win the 2024 election — a mea culpa

For as long as I’ve covered politics, the “hold your nose and vote” trope has been a staple in the zeitgeist.

Sometimes it’s the “lesser of two evils” or the “least of the two bad options,” but the point is the same. “South Park” put its own twist on this “choice” in October 2004, when it depicted its coincidentally timed “school mascot election” as a choice between a “giant douche” and a “turd sandwich,” complete with a lecture at the end about the importance of voting even if the choice is between two very unappetizing options.

Which, of course, brings me to our always uplifting and joyful campaign between Donald Trump and Joe Biden — our third-ever campaign between two presidents and the first in the modern age. Unlike most elections, voters don’t have to imagine what either presidency is going to look like — they already have that picture. It’s the ultimate choice election, and whatever the outcome, voters can’t say they weren’t warned.

But the uncomfortable truth about this choice election is that the last slice of people deciding which way to vote don’t love their options. Will they hold their noses and vote for one of the presidents? Will they decide to stay home? Will they simply vote third-party or skip the presidential race altogether on their ballots?

As I’ve noted previously, this election is going to be decided by two kinds of “swing” voters: the independents truly vacillating between Biden and Trump and the disaffected partisans deciding whether to vote or not.

Obviously, if I knew how voters were likely to answer those questions, I’d be moving to the U.K. and legally betting on the outcome!

The question I’ve been pondering — and what many a strategist in both the Trump and the Biden camps is trying to