U.S. President, the Democrat Joe Biden, and former Republican President Donald Trump (2017-2021), now mathematically confirmed as the White House candidates, have launched a brutal election campaign filled with personal attacks and expected to be particularly fierce.
Biden and Trump secured the majority of delegates needed to win their primaries 239 days before the November 5 election. They did so simultaneously, after prevailing in Georgia, Mississippi, and the state of Washington.
This will therefore be one of the longest campaigns in modern U.S. history, comparable to those in 2000 and 2004.
In 2000, Democrat Al Gore, then vice president, and Republican George W. Bush, who was governor of Texas, were left without rivals in the primaries after Super Tuesday in March, though they still lacked the delegates needed to be mathematically confirmed as candidates.
Four years later, in 2004, Democrat John Kerry also clinched his nomination after Super Tuesday to face Bush, who was seeking re-election.
But the political climate has changed dramatically over these two decades, and the tension of an almost eight-month campaign between Trump and Biden is unprecedented.
Both candidates also have high disapproval ratings, and voters with a negative view of both Biden and Trump will ultimately decide the election.
Biden has a 58% disapproval rating, while Trump’s is 57%, according to a January poll by Gallup.
BIDEN SETS FOOT IN KEY STATES
Facing the prospect of a long, harsh, and closely contested campaign, Biden began a tour of several key states that will decide the November election last Friday in Pennsylvania.
This Wednesday, he will be in Milwaukee (Wisconsin) for a rally and to inaugurate his campaign headquarters in that city, while tomorrow he will travel to Michigan, where its significant Arab community turned its back on him in the late-February primaries as a protest against his support for Israel.
These three states handed Trump the victory in the 2016 election against Hillary Clinton, but Biden won them back for the Democrats in 2020 to secure the White House.
All this follows his combative State of the Union address to Congress last Thursday, in which he targeted Trump and Republicans: “My predecessor and some of you here seek to bury the truth about January 6 (…) This is the time to speak the truth and bury the lies. Here is a simple truth: You cannot love your country only when you win,” he said, referring to the 2021 Capitol attack.
“This may have been the worst State of the Union address ever delivered, the angriest and least combative. Joe Biden is running from his record and lying like crazy to try to escape responsibility for the horrible devastation he and his party have created,” Trump responded after that appearance.
For Trump, the joy of mathematically securing the Republican nomination did not come alone.
This Wednesday morning, the judge overseeing his criminal case for election interference in Georgia decided to dismiss six of the 41 charges in the case after determining that the prosecutor, Fani Willis, provided a “fatal lack of details.”
Trump celebrated the judicial decision but, in an email requesting donations, warned his supporters that while “the corrupt war Fani Willis is waging is crumbling, the numerous witch hunts are still in full swing.”
Trump’s legal troubles will be another constant source of political instability in the coming months in the U.S., where a judicial decision can fill the country’s future with uncertainty.
Image: Listin
