The rematch feared by many American voters has arrived
US President Joe Biden’s campaign aides have long said that once the presidential race becomes a clear contrast between two choices, their electoral prospects will brighten as voters come face to face with the stark prospect of Donald Trump’s return to the White House.
With the Super Tuesday contests completed, and Trump’s last major GOP rival, former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, suspending her campaign, Biden’s allies now have their chance – and eight months of political combat – to prove their theory.
The 2024 general election has kicked off in earnest – promising to be the longest, most expensive and, perhaps, most divisive presidential race in recent memory.
The reactions of both men to Wednesday’s results – with each rushing to attack the other, and casting the election as an existential moment for the country – offered a hint of what voters can expect to see in a rematch of the 2020 race that many have long said they dreaded.
“He is driven by grievance and grift, focused on his own revenge and retribution, not the American people,” Biden said of Trump. “He’s the worst president in the history of our country,” Trump told supporters around the same time, calling Election Day 2024 “the single most important day in the history of our country.”
Voters face a choice between candidates whose temperamental and policy differences reflect a country riven not just by political preference but also by deep social and cultural divisions.
“This is a ‘two Americas’ election,” said Joel Payne, a Democratic strategist. “There’s one America where it’s about pluralism and inclusivity and democratic norms – and that’s Joe Biden. Then you have another America that is fed up and angry and cynical – and that’s Donald Trump.”
In a rare rematch of two presidents, Payne added, each man had found success appealing to the version of America he thought represented a path to 270 electoral votes.
Both campaigns have narrowed the battleground map primarily to Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, with the possible addition of North Carolina.
The Trump campaign is planning a general election message focused on inflation, immigration and Biden’s mental fitness. Advisers expect Biden to attack Trump over his role in ending the constitutional right to an abortion, and over his efforts to overturn the result of the last presidential election, leading to the January 6, 2021 riot at the US Capitol.
Even as Haley remained in the race over the past few months, both Biden and Trump increasingly turned their fire on each other. Biden aides have responded to the president’s struggles in polls, many of which have shown Trump leading in key states, by pointing out that Trump-backed candidates have lost in several races over the past two years.
Biden frames his re-election as pivotal for the preservation of America’s democracy, casting Trump and his most incendiary proposals as antithetical to the nation’s fundamental freedoms and values.
While the president spent much of last year touting his record on the economy – promoting the catchphrase “Bidenomics” – he has often used his more recent public comments to directly attack his predecessor.
For his part, Trump has sought to frame the race as an opportunity for the country to return to what he has described, often falsely, as an era of prosperity, unity and tranquillity under his leadership. In a Super Tuesday victory speech, he said he would unify the Republican Party and the country by returning the US to an era of great “success”.
The next few months will present key tests as both men seek to shore up support within their own parties, after dominant performances thus far in primary races that nonetheless exposed potential weaknesses in their electoral coalitions.
Trump’s battle against Haley showcased his poor standing among some traditionally Republican constituencies, including university-educated centre-right voters and people who reject his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
Haley’s victories in Vermont and the District of Columbia, and her strong showings in university towns and suburban communities, highlight the work Trump will need to do in the coming months to unify his party.
Haley pointedly did not endorse Trump as she bowed out of the race yesterday, saying the former president needed to earn the backing of her supporters.
Biden advisers have been studying the results of the Republican primaries. By tracking where and with whom Haley performed well, they hope to have gained insight into how to target their own spending over the coming months.
In a memo, Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez and strategist Jen O’Malley Dillon noted that Haley did well in GOP primaries in Michigan, North Carolina and the Virginia suburbs. “A significant share of moderate and Haley voters across the country are saying that Trump cannot count on their votes in a general election,” they said.
Biden has already begun to make a play for those voters. “Donald Trump made it clear he doesn’t want Nikki Haley’s supporters,” he said. “I want to be clear: There is a place for them in my campaign.”
But Scott Reed, a longtime Republican strategist, predicted that “a good chunk” of Haley’s voters would eventually back Trump, though some would find it difficult to back either candidate.
“And you’ve got this new phenomenon this cycle, which some are calling ‘double haters’, because of both candidates being old and being very polarising,” he said.
Biden is 81 and Trump is 77.
Biden, whose little-known Democratic challengers have struggled to gain traction in the primaries so far, nonetheless faces a challenge in shoring up his own coalition, particularly when it comes to divisions exposed by his support for Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. Arab Americans, progressives and other key constituencies have mounted campaigns to vote “uncommitted” during Democratic primaries to showcase their displeasure with the war and Biden’s handling of it.
Beyond that, Biden must put to rest concerns about his advanced age, and also attempt to reverse his poor poll numbers on such hot-button issues as the economy and immigration. He is likely to face a barrage of attacks on those and other matters, with the Republican war chest and party establishment now fully behind Trump.
While Biden in coming months faces pressure to improve his polling numbers, Trump has a similarly urgent need to catch up to Biden and the Democrats in fundraising, while at the same time needing to cover some half a billion dollars in legal judgments after losing civil lawsuits.
He also faces four criminal trials, the first of which is scheduled to start on March 25, that his legal team is trying to delay until after the election.
But even as Biden has amplified Trump’s most incendiary comments, and Haley has attacked him for his legal problems in recent months, the former president’s dominance in the Republican race has concerned some of the Democrats who are now tasked with finding a way to blunt his momentum. – Washington Post