The people to watch in 2024 ahead of America’s election

Time was when American politics served up electrifying or at least surprising nominees to be president: Barack Obama, barely three years out of the Illinois state legislature, storming past Hillary Clinton; John McCain overcoming the scorn of conservatives; Donald Trump doing that thing he did in 2016; and even, lest you forget, Joe Biden, once counted out because of his age and past centrism, clearing the field in 2020.

Now comes the 2024 political cycle, a triumph of recycling. President Biden and former President Trump are preparing to star in a sequel most Americans do not care to see. That means that eyes will be on the vice-president, Kamala Harris, as well. Because Mr Biden is the oldest president ever, and would be 82 at his second inauguration, voters will scrutinise Ms Harris with unusual care.

The sequel does, however, promise some new plot lines: for the first time in presidential politics, courtroom action will attract more attention than campaign events, and may prove more decisive. Mr Trump, the first president or former president ever indicted, faces 91 felony counts in four cases and four jurisdictions. In Fulton County, Georgia, where he is charged over his efforts to overturn the 2020 election, the trial will be televised and streamed live.

That will help make Fani Willis, the Fulton County district attorney, one of the most important players in American politics in 2024, alongside Jack Smith, the special counsel who has brought federal charges against Mr Trump in Florida, for absconding with classified documents, and in Washington, dc, for trying to overthrow democracy. Acquittals in these cases could help put Mr Trump back in the White House, but it is not certain that convictions would bar the door.

That would depend on how successful Mr Trump proves in damaging the credibility of the prosecutors and of the legal system itself. He is busy portraying Ms Willis and Mr Smith as villains. Beyond the prosecutors’ own steely demeanours, their best defence will be the revelations of their witnesses and other evidence.

In the end, in a country of 340m, a small group will matter most. Mr Biden won the popular vote in 2020 by nearly 7m, but if about 44,000 votes in three states had gone the other way, he and Mr Trump would have been tied in the electoral college. The non-partisan Cook Political Report rates four states as toss-ups in 2024: Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. In the suburbs of those states are some voters who have not yet sworn loyalty to one tribe. They will choose the next president. ■

James Bennet, Lexington columnist, The Economist, Washington, DC