Biden, Trump rematch

WHITE HOUSE RACE: THIRD-PARTY, INDEPENDENTS CRITICAL FACTOR

→ Voters turned off by two unpopular frontrunners.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump cruised to comfortable victories on Super Tuesday, setting up an almost certain rerun of the 2020 election, but their primary successes cloak problems that could have a significant impact on the White House race.

Worries over Biden’s age and anger over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war have muted celebrations over his big wins while Trump faces doubts over his ability to unify a party fractured by his attacks on the Republican establishment.

Third-party and independent candidates have, meanwhile, emerged as a potentially critical factor, with voters – turned off by the two historically unpopular frontrunners – apparently more open than ever to wildcards who could tilt the election.

If the primaries held so far have demonstrated anything, it’s that the Republican Party is not united behind its now-presumptive nominee.

Substantial anti-Trump resistance has cropped up among moderate suburban voters in almost every state to hold a presidential nominating contest.

Crucially, around two-thirds to three-quarters of his rival Nikki Haley’s voters in South Carolina, Iowa and New Hampshire made clear in exit polls that Trump could not count on their vote.

“Haley’s quixotic race for the GOP nomination exposed Trump’s flawed and weakened standing within the Republican Party, but more broadly with the American electorate,” said Alyssa Farah Griffin, a communications director in the Trump White House.

Trump’s criminal exposure – 91 felony charges across four jurisdictions – has further complicated his path, with at least one in three Republican primary voters ruling out supporting a convicted felon.

Trump said on Monday on social media that he wants to unite Republicans but, at the same time, gloated over how he had “trounced” Haley and accused her of having received support from “radical left” Democrats.

Biden’s troops, meanwhile, are lukewarm about their own standard-bearer for different reasons.

A recent New York Times/Siena College poll revealed that the majority of the 81-year-old president’s 2020 voters believe he is “too old to be effective”.

“If I’m in team Biden’s camp right now, those alarm bells, they are sounding, and they are sounding loudly,” Republican strategist Colin Reed told Sky News.

While there’s not much he can do about his age, another vexing issue is a growing protest movement among Democrats over the war in Gaza.

In Michigan – a state Biden won in 2020 but Trump took home in 2016 – more than 100 000 Democratic voters cast ballots for “uncommitted” in the February primary. Figures of 45 000 to 88 000 in several Super Tuesday states piled on the agony.

“These are unbelievable numbers,” said Hassan Abdel Salam, a founder of the Abandon Biden movement, adding that he was seeing support from Jewish and African Americans, as well as Latinos and young voters.

Biden supporters however point to similar numbers in some of those states when Obama sought re-election in 2012.

But it is still a headache the Biden campaign could do without in an election that is expected to come down to a few hundred thousand votes across a handful of swing states.

Biden and Trump may be able to tamp down rebellions within their ranks by November, leaving what could turn out to be the biggest threat of all: third-party candidates. –