2024 Already.
The election calendar demands it.
The 2024 campaign is underway.
Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are hurting their parties by hanging onto their roles as party leaders. Ron DeSantis is sending signals that he isn't waiting to follow Trump. He plans on displacing him. Biden could still confound Democrats by running for re-election, but I suspect he won't.
Count backwards.
Start with the Vice President's count of the electoral votes in January 2025. The states will have elections in November 2024. The major parties will have conventions in the summer of 2024 when they will ratify their choices of their nominees. The convention choice is based on prior primary and caucus victories in the states, which take place between February and June 2024, starting with New Hampshire.
New Hampshire's vote is currently scheduled for the first Tuesday in February. In recent decades, that election has followed the Iowa caucuses. This is now uncertain, at least for Democrats, because the confusion over caucus vote-tallying on election night by Democrats soured the Democratic Party on Iowa. Nevada is jockeying to replace Iowa.
By the spring of 2023 candidates will begin appearing in New Hampshire. By that summer every serious candidate will have made multiple trips to New Hampshire--25 or more individual events. They will also need to make a show of presence at conventions of party activists.
National media will describe the size and enthusiasm of the crowds. Candidates appearing to do well with have six to ten cameras and crews on the scene for each event.
The make-or-break period is between March and October 2023, when the New Hampshire likely winners come into focus. Candidates that don't catch on drop out. That was Kamala Harris's experience in 2019. Candidates who draw enthusiastic crowds get voter word of mouth that builds. That was Pete Buttigieg's and Elizabeth Warren's experience.
A candidate needs a campaign in the spring of 2023 to pay for operations and communication staff, for website management, for a fundraising operation, and for travel by the candidate to and from New Hampshire, Iowa or Nevada, and South Carolina.
A campaign probably needs to lease one or more vehicles as a portable campaign HQ in New Hampshire, and to keep the candidate and crew together as they move from event to event.
That means they need early money raised before spring, 2023. That means now.
A great deal is taking place under the surface. Potential candidates are feeling out the landscape. Candidates have "exploratory" campaigns. Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo accepted invitations to speak at a Faith and Freedom event in Texas, where they got national media attention. To be credible at the "exploratory" phase a candidate needs a pre-existing network of donors and supporters.
Trump is trying to block DeSantis from getting campaign traction.Trump attacks Republicans he thinks are disloyal to him personally, which raises the risk for donors and officeholders who might think to help DeSantis, Pence, Cruz, Hawley, or the others. Biden's announcement that he expects to run means that any Democrat thinking of running must position themself in opposition to Biden--making instant enemies and dividing the party--rather than as the successor to Biden. That is making Democrats hesitate.
Both Democrats and Republicans are waiting impatiently, noticing that the calendar is drawing short.