Despite the best efforts of the US media to whip up some sense of drama, this week’s Super Tuesday primaries delivered sweeping and utterly predictable wins for Joe Biden and Donald Trump in the contests to become the respective nominees of the Democratic and Republican parties in the November presidential election. The decision by Trump’s last remaining challenger, Nikki Haley, to suspend her campaign only confirms the inevitable: barring a dramatic event such as a health scare (not actuarially implausible, given the candidates’ ages), the United States will see a repeat of the 2020 election. In all but name, the general election campaign has already begun.
It is an indictment of the primary system and of the two parties that they are presenting American voters with a choice which, according to polling, they emphatically do not wish to make.
Between them, Biden and Trump are the two least popular major party candidates in history, yet neither Democrats nor Republicans managed to come up with a more attractive option for the electorate.
At the moment, the advantage appears to lie with Trump, even though he remains just as unpopular as when he lost four years ago. The difference now is that Biden’s favourability ratings have slumped since 2020 and show little sign of recovering. The decline is particularly pronounced among black, Hispanic and younger voters, all key parts of the Democratic base.
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Further good news for Trump has come with two decisions by the supreme court. One, dismissing an attempt by Colorado’s legislature to remove him from that state’s ballot because of his role in the Capitol riot of January 6th, 2021, was widely expected. The other, agreeing to consider Trump’s claim of executive privilege as a defence in the federal prosecution of him over the events of January 6th, makes it less likely that the trial will take place before the election.
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It is not fanciful to believe that voters’ perceptions of the economy, and therefore of Biden, will improve over the next few months. Nor is it impossible that some voters, faced with the prospect of Trump returning to the White House, will ultimately return to the Democratic fold. But these are shaky grounds on which to base a re-election campaign and they ignore the real concerns most Americans express about Biden’s fitness for four more years in office. Meanwhile, nothing Trump or the Republicans have said or done in recent months will dispel the fear that, if re-elected, they will do real damage to American democracy and the international order.
With the outcome of the election hingeing on knife-edge results in a half dozen swing states, a fraught and nervous eight months lie ahead.