US President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump clinched their parties’ presidential nominations on Tuesday, March 12 with decisive victories, setting up a general election rematch that many voters do not want. Neither Biden, a Democrat, nor Trump, a Republican, faced major opposition.
With wins in Georgia, Mississippi and Washington state, Trump surpassed the 1,215-delegate threshold needed to become the presumptive Republican nominee. He’ll formally accept the nomination at the Republican National Convention in July, by which point he could be in the remarkable position of being both a presidential candidate and convicted felon.
Trump’s victory in the GOP primary ushers in what will almost certainly be an extraordinarily negative general election campaign that will tug at the nation’s already searing political and cultural divides. He’ll face President Joe Biden in the fall, pitting two deeply unpopular figures against each other in a rematch of the 2020 campaign that few voters say they want to experience again.
Thirty-eight percent of Americans viewed Trump very or somewhat favourably in a February poll conducted by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs, compared to 41% for Biden.
Not even halfway through the presidential primary calendar, Tuesday marked a crystallising moment for a nation uneasy with its choices in 2024. At 81, Biden is already the oldest president in US history, while the 77-year-old Trump is facing decades in prison as a defendant in four criminal cases. Their re-match, the first featuring two US presidents since 1912, will almost certainly deepen the nation’s searing political and cultural divides over the eight-month grind that lies ahead.
Despite their tough talk, the road ahead will not be easy for either presumptive nominee. Trump is facing 91 felony counts in four criminal cases involving his handling of classified documents and his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, amongst other alleged crimes.
However, Trump, so far, has deftly used the legal cases as a rallying cry, portraying them as a plot hatched by Democrats to keep him out of power. That argument proved powerful among GOP primary voters, with whom Trump remains a deeply popular figure.
He’s also facing increasingly pointed questions about his policy plans and relationships with some of the world’s most dangerous dictators.
Trump has been ambivalent about other basic democratic ideals during his 2024 campaign. This is seen as a departure from the longstanding posture of the U.S., which has focused on strengthening democracies abroad. But a Trump election could upend U.S. support for Ukraine after its invasion by Russia. And it could have dramatic implications for NATO. For Trump has been viewed as a champion of the anti-globalist tribe. During his years in the White House, Trump often derided the transatlantic alliance as antiquated and lamented that some countries weren’t spending enough on their own defence.
Meanwhile, Biden, who would be 86 years old at the end of his next term, is working to assure a sceptical electorate that he’s still physically and mentally able to thrive in the world’s most important job. Voters in both parties are unhappy with his handling of immigration and inflation. And he’s dealing with additional dissension within his party’s progressive base, furious that he hasn’t done more to stop Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
The upcoming elections show how limited choice is available to the Americans. Now they need to brace themselves to choose and settle between the devil and the deep sea.
