Editor’s note: We were granted access to a time machine and got to catch a glimpse of the 2024 Election Day coverage, so I bring you the lead story from the post-Election Day New York Times for next year!

Donald J. Trump, leading in national and popularity polls, falls short in bid to retake presidency

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Despite dominating in several recent polls, former president Donald J. Trump appears to have lost the 2024 presidential election to Joseph Biden, despite Biden’s well-chronicled unpopularity among voters, his age and his party’s disarray coming into the 2024 election.

Mr. Trump, who by a margin of 52-46, was rated as “more popular” and “a more fun hang” than Mr. Biden, is so far down more than 10 million votes to Biden nationally.

Mr. Biden, 81, as in 8 decades old, an octogenarian, born in 1942, before World War II was even over, won at least 316 electoral votes, a shocking repudiation of the grassroots narrative that he was old and out of touch in a way the vigorous 78-year-old Trump was not.

Left-leaning Alaska had yet to finish counting, and Mr. Biden had a small lead in the liberal state, which would bring him up to 319 electoral votes.

Despite his wide unpopularity with voters, Mr. Biden won every so-called “swing” state he carried in 2020 and added North Carolina, despite the state’s polling showing him being a less popular choice for president among self-proclaimed “MAGA” voters.

“The voters have spoken tonight, and their message was that Donald Trump is a more popular candidate. Many people are saying it more and more,” Trump said during his late-night concession speech, carried on every channel.

Biden also spoke, on CSPAN-3, presumably to thank those who voted for him despite being of an age when many younger relatives begin to discuss nursing home options for their elders.

While Mr. Biden was hounded by being unpopular, old and a Democrat, some observers noted that Trump’s relatively minor legal troubles — he was forced to give his concession speech from his cell in the U.S. Penitentiary in Atlanta — may have dragged him down in the later stages of the election cycle. 

“It’s pretty remarkable that Joe Biden is 81 years old,” said nonpartisan New York Times election analyst Mark Meadows. “Surely that’s a bigger issue than the president needing to get a pass from the warden to attend his inauguration.”

While voters did not back the more popular Mr. Trump, they also did not back the more popular Republican Party, as the GOP lost its House majority and failed to take the Senate from the Democrats, despite a late barrage of media coverage noting that Mr. Biden was likely too old to drive safely on his own at this point of his life.

Broadly popular anti-abortion measures also failed in several left-leaning states, like Minnesota, Texas, Arkansas, West Virginia and Idaho, again suggesting that Democrats need to be careful about how far they’re willing to go to defend women’s health care.

Despite losing electorally, Mr. Trump is the first former president to win popularity polls after losing a presidential election since Grover Cleveland in 1893. He vowed to fight on as soon as his consecutive prison sentences end in 2033.

“You can’t keep me locked in here forever,” said Trump, shortly before cameras were removed from the prison due to the end of visiting hours.

Voters at Shelly’s Diner in Celina, Ohio said they were shocked by the outcome, and cast some doubt on Mr. Biden’s supposed “victory” given that their county voted nearly 70% for Mr. Trump.

“If you say he won, I don’t believe you,” said James “Red” Blankenship, 60, who described himself as a former Democrat because his grandfather voted for FDR once, in 1932. “Nothing the New York Times says is true. Did you see those polls? Clearly, Donald Trump is still the president.”

A snap poll taken shortly after Biden’s announced victory found that he remained under 50% popularity nationally, a harbinger of potential electability problems despite his winning a second term and being Constitutionally barred from seeking a third.

Members of the GOP House minority have already begun to coalesce around a strategy that could see them take up a 78th impeachment vote against the widely unpopular president.

“Just as soon as we elect a minority leader, we’ll get right on the Biden vote,” said former Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La. “Shouldn’t take more than a few months before we end up with someone in that position.”

Democrats, meanwhile, said they were relieved with the night’s outcome but still worried about Biden’s electability and how it could impact the party’s electoral success.

“You have someone that old on the top of the ticket, it’s just hard to believe that it won’t drag down the rest of the ballot,” said former Obama adviser David Axelrod. “Sure, voters went our way in 2018, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23 and 24, but it’s only a matter of time before Biden’s age becomes an issue that voters won’t look past so long as it’s on the front page of the New York Times every day.”