Election 2024: Understanding the Role of Status Quo Bias

We have a bias towards maintaining the status quo aptly named status quo bias. The status quo is safe. The reasoning goes if the way we’re doing things didn’t hurt us yesterday, it won’t hurt us today, and it won’t hurt us tomorrow, so why change it now? We prefer things to stay the same. Same is safe.

The devil you know and all that.

It’s been found empirically by several disciplines. Political scientists found it in incumbency bias. We all know it is difficult to beat an incumbent because people are reluctant to change. Behavioral economists call it risk aversion: we hate change, but will take a chance to avoid a sure loss.

The Effects of Status Quo Bias on the Election

Understanding the Republican Primary

Just understanding this one simple facet of human nature allows us to understand and predict most election. For example, it explains why I2I4 is running away with the Republican primary: he’s the de facto incumbent. Republicans had their chance to defeat Trump both in the 2020 election and in the second impeachment and failed to do so. If they were going to do it, they were going to do it then. That McCarthy, McConnell, the Republican Congress, and the rank and vile MAGA voter didn’t shit can him then, tells you how much change just scares the bejeezus out of us, or that they really really want us to buy what Trump is selling. Even Trump’s losing electoral track record couldn’t convince McCarthy and McConnell — two craven political animals — to take their opportunity to put an end to Trump’s reign of error over the Republican Party.

If MAGA Republicans view I2I4 as an incumbent, the disinterested disaffected disengaged occasional voter probably does, too. To every liberal political junkie, he is a wannabe fascist authoritarian hoping to gut, stuff, and mount our democracy on the wall of Merde a Lardo like it was a trophy of an endangered species brought home by Don-Don and Ewick on one of their luxury pampered guaranteed big game hunting expeditions. However, most voters probably don’t view it that way.

All the negative emotions surrounding Biden make him seem more like a sure loss if re-elected, which makes Trump seem like a more viable alternative. This is true even though most of the negativity is due to conservative news outlets framing everything in the worst possible light. That is the illusion of truthiness. If you hear something once, no matter how false or outrageous it is, you’re more likely to believe the next time you hear it.

The other factor making I2I4 seem more worth the risk of changing mid-incumbency is the mainstream media framing the election as a run-of-the-ill garden-variety horse race between two equally qualified candidates instead of the Squid Games death match for our democracy that it is.

How Status Quo Bias Increases the Risk of Third Party Voting or Couch Surfing During the Election

Another view that many voters may take, however, is that Trump is a sure loss, too. They remember the chaos and confusion that he wrought. They hear his racist violent rhetoric now. They blame him for the abortion and anti-LGBTQ+ laws sweeping the nation and conclude that he’s not a risk they’re willing to take. He’s a sure loss, too.

If both Biden and Trump are both viewed as sure losses, then voters begin casting about for a third option. This is an important point. Should the election continue to be framed as it is, a portion of the electorate will be more likely to take a chance with one of their other two options: stay home and not vote or vote for a third party candidate.

If that happens, it would be a disaster since it would only take a percentage or two of the vote in the battleground states for Trump to win. We know that Republican dark money is behind both Robert Kennedy Jr’s and the No Labels’ effort to get on the ballot in all fifty states, so it seems like conservative billionaires are thinking the same things.

Conventional Wisdom does not Apply to an Unconventional Election: Reasons for Hope

While no incumbent president has won reelection with as poor approval rating as Biden has now, we are living in unprecedented times.

• No incumbent president has ever run against such a proven fascist authoritarian who is under felony indictment for an insurrection and having stolen state secrets.
• No other incumbent president has run for reelection after the Supreme Court took away a seventy year old right and is threatening to take away more rights.
• No other incumbent president is running against a likely opponent, whose primary challengers are doing so little to drive up his negatives. A serious primary campaign often leaves the winner damaged, this Republican primary isn’t doing that to Trump. In fact, it seems to be doing the opposite.

As we go through this year, we shouldn’t panic if the usual horse race rules aren’t working in our favor since this isn’t your usual horse race for the presidency no matter how hard the mainstream press wants to make it into one. We’ve been down this road before in 2018, 2020, and 2022. As the pressure on Trump increases the more volatile, shrill, and outlandish his rhetoric becomes, the more he alienates swing voters. The questions are will they turn out in 2024, and if they do, will they vote Biden and the Democrats?

Biden and the Democrats must hammer home the message that we need to return to our democratic norms and roots. It is a difficult message to convey through the chaos and anger that I2I4 and the Republican Party wield as a cudgel against us, but it is the winning message. It frames us as the status quo and all other options as not only change, but also, a sure loss of our rights and civil liberties.

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Image Attribution

This image was generated using Poe’s StableDiffusionXL bot using the prompt, A film noir style image of a “meh” voter passing Biden, Trump, and third party posters