How either Trump or Biden can win the U.S. election
Having won a majority of delegates in the primaries on Tuesday, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are now the presumptive U.S. presidential nominees of the Democrats and Republicans.
Something catastrophic could change things between now and the party conventions this summer. But that's as likely as Taylor Swift performing in Swift Current.
So the campaign formally begins, earlier than ever. On March 12, 1968, New Hampshire held the first presidential primary of that season. On March 12, 2024, Georgia, Mississippi and Washington State held primaries, with more to come.
What was once the beginning of the nominating season is now the end. It's counterintuitive.
Rather than accelerating their electoral process, Americans have extended it. This in a country of fast food and speed-dating, which developed a COVID vaccine at “warp speed.” But the making of a president? Nasty and long. This campaign is also the least predictable. There are many unknowable elements: a former president challenging an incumbent president, both with records. One facing four criminal cases and 91 felony counts, the other facing the threat of impeachment. A conservative high court favouring Trump. An incendiary issue (abortion) favouring Biden. A reign of disinformation. Unreliable polling.
Third-party candidates collectively polling in double-digits, which could make them spoilers.
The case for Trump? His army of followers who revere his record and excuse his character. They forgive his fraudulent businesses, his infidelity and his sexual abuse. They repeat his lies. They loved his economy and forget his pandemic. He is their Abominable Showman.
They show up at his rallies and in the polls. They are blue-collar workers, evangelicals, less-educated white males, Wall Street plutocrats and Proud Boys. They pay his legal bills.
To win in November, he outruns the law, delaying the cases until after the election. The Supreme Court, with his three sympathetic appointees, helps. He polls better among youth, Hispanics and Blacks. He makes Sen. Tim Scott his running mate.
Elon Musk and other billionaires give him money. His voters show up while those unhappy with Biden over Gaza, the size of a Snickers bar, the price of gas or the shade of his aviator glasses, do not. Trump carries Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as he did in 2016.
His voters reject gerontocracy and get autocracy instead.
As the polls narrow in the autumn, Trump's Hail Mary: Biden freezes on a public platform. It's the October Surprise and it's the election.
And Biden? His path to re-election begins with an unorthodox campaign of limited, selective public appearances (a “Rose Garden” and “Front Porch” strategy mobilizing his office and incumbency) with unprecedented use of social media. He wins over Independents, moderates and suburban Republicans who compare him “not to the Almighty, but to the alternative,” as Biden implores.
Women galvanized by the threat to abortion rally to Biden. Muslims (who worry more about Trump and another immigration ban), Blacks (who remember his judicial appointments) and students (whose debt he's largely forgiven) return to him. He breaks with Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, finally, cheering progressives.
The Democrats use blanket advertising, carpet-bombing the airwaves and outspending the Republicans 2-to-1. They make the election a referendum on Trump, not Biden.
Under Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan, Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania and Tony Evers in Wisconsin, all strong Democratic governors, they hold the “Blue Wall.”
Without the marquee Senate races they had in 2020, Democrats lose Georgia (16 Electoral College votes). But with a racist, antisemitic Republican running for governor, they win North Carolina (16 Electoral College votes). And Arizona, too.
On election day, the Democrats over-perform at the polls, as in 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2023.
One thing about 2024: Whoever wins will have to take more votes from the third-party candidates than the other. The insurgent candidacy of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will be pivotal.
Together, third parties could win one-fifth of the vote. It means Joe Biden or Donald Trump could slip into office with less than 40 per cent of the electorate, the majority unsatisfied with both of them.