After a summer of legislative successes and a strong performance in November’s midterm elections temporarily silenced President Biden’s critics inside the Democratic Party, his recent scandal involving potential mishandling of classified documents is reigniting discussion on if Biden should be the Democratic candidate for the 2024 election.

FiveThirtyEight currently lists Biden’s approval rating at 43.9%, with the latest data from January 13, the day after Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the appointment of a special counsel to investigate the President.

Despite the present scandal, Paul Krugman cited positive economic outlook numbers, including declining inflation, to paint a positive picture for the Democrats heading into 2024, stating, “things look far better for Democrats now than almost anyone imagined until very recently.” Krugman tentatively predicted a Democratic victory in 2024 behind Biden, stating that “even with cooperation from too many in the media,” Republicans will be unable to “convince Americans that the Biden administration is riddled with corruption.”

An article in the Washington Examiner recounted Biden’s late success in the 2020 presidential election democratic primary to determine it too soon to judge his 2024 potential. Referring to the present scandal Biden finds himself in, the article states, “it is entirely possible that by the time it matters electorally, stories about where Biden kept classified documents and what Hunter was up to will be as forgotten as headlines suggesting he could lose to Buttigieg or Sen. Bernie Sanders.”