It’s almost official now. The current president, Joe Biden, has an appointment to repeat the duel for the presidency once morest Donald Trump in November, with the roles changed compared to 2020, since Biden is now the president and Trump is in the opposition. The two have secured this Tuesday the absolute majority of the delegates who must elect the candidates for the presidential elections on November 5 of the Democratic and Republican Parties in the summer conventions, following the primaries of both parties in Georgia, Mississippi and the Washington State. They are now the virtual nominees.
In reality, both Biden and Trump had effectively secured the nomination with the results a week ago, when both swept. In the Republican Party, Trump emerged from Super Tuesday with 1,089 delegates, just 126 shy of the required 1,215 majority. The sentence was dictated by the ballot boxes even before Nikki Haley, aware that the distance was unbridgeable, announced her withdrawal. This Tuesday there were still marginal candidates on the Republican ballots (Haley herself appeared, given the advance notice with which you have to register), obviously without possibilities.
The Republican convention will be held from July 15 to 18 in Milwaukee, the most important city in Wisconsin, one of the six states that are presented as decisive in the presidential elections on November 5, along with Pennsylvania, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Arizona . This Tuesday Trump has scored clear and easy victories in the primaries of Georgia, Mississippi and Washington and with that he has reached the majority without needing to wait for the results of the elections. caucus from Hawaii, where it also devastated.
What is expected is that the former president will win the nomination with victories in all constituencies except Vermont and Washington DC, where Haley won. Trump has swept the primaries despite his 2020 defeat and despite his four indictments for a total of 91 crimes. In less than two weeks he will have to sit in the dock for the first time in a criminal case.
Trump has received a punishing vote in Georgia, where a significant percentage of the votes, around 13%, more than 77,000 votes, has gone to Haley, despite the fact that she has abandoned her campaign. In Georgia there are open primaries, so it is difficult to interpret to what extent this punishment comes from moderate Republicans who defect from Trump or from Democrats who have preferred to vote in the rival party’s primaries to erode the former president.
In the Democratic Party, there was no real opposition at any time, since neither Congressman Dean Philips nor self-help book writer Marianne Williamson have had the slightest chance. Robert Kennedy Jr. decided to withdraw early and try to run as an independent. Despite doubts regarding his popularity and his age, 81, the potential major contenders have respected the tradition of not standing up to the president in office.
The first results of this Tuesday’s election night, those from Georgia, were enough for Biden to surpass the 1,968 delegates that will give him the majority, although he has also won without an alternative in Mississippi and with some protest votes in the State from Washington, where 7.5% have opted for the “not committed” ballot. Biden has benefited from the fact that Florida and Delaware have canceled their primaries because the president is the only candidate, which means that all the delegates from those states have signed up. This has caused him to reach his majority a week earlier than planned. The Democratic convention will take place from August 19 to 22 in Chicago (Illinois).
Both the votes for Haley in Georgia, in the case of Trump, and the “uncommitted” ones in Washington, in that of Biden, are a new example of some weaknesses of both candidates. For Trump, the main risk is that moderate and independent voters will turn their backs on him. In Biden’s case, they are a symptom of how some segments of the population, particularly young voters, Arabs and some other minorities, reject his support for Israel in the Gaza war, which the US government has increasingly qualified. further.
Biden has celebrated his nomination in a statement in which he points out his rival as a risk to democracy. “I am honored that the broad coalition of voters who represent the rich diversity of the Democratic Party across the country have trusted me once once more to lead our party—and our country—at a time when the threat posed by Trump It is greater than ever,” he said. According to the president, Trump “is waging a campaign of resentment, revenge and retaliation that threatens the very idea of America.” For its part, the Trump campaign has released a video of the former president on social media in which he celebrates “a great day of victory” and insists on his message that Joe Biden is “the worst president in the history” of the United States ( a position that historians actually assign to him).
As presumptive or virtual candidates, Trump and Biden have the apparatus of their respective parties at their disposal, although in practice they already had it. The president, since the beginning of the campaign, and Trump, since he recently took control of the Republican Party.
It is the first time that the two contenders have met since 1956. Then, Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Democrat Adlai Stevenson for the second time. There have also been several occasions when a sitting president has clashed with a former president. The only precedent in which the duel of the same candidates has been repeated, first with one in the White House and then with the other, is that of Democrat Grover Cleveland. He was elected in 1884, lost the election once morest Republican Benjamin Harrison in 1888 and regained the presidency once morest that same rival in 1992. He is therefore considered the 22nd and 24th president of the United States. Trump aspires to emulate him.
The key states
Although neither Trump nor Biden had significant rivals, both traveled to Georgia last weekend to campaign. They were not thinking regarding the primaries, but regarding the presidential ones, given the importance of that State. It is the second time in two weeks that they have crossed paths, as they recently met on the border with Mexico, one of the star issues of the campaign. Of the decisive states, Georgia is the second with the greatest weight (16 delegates or electoral college votes), behind Pennsylvania (19) and ahead of Michigan (15), Arizona (11), Wisconsin (10) and Nevada ( 6).
In the 2020 election, Biden won by 306 electoral votes to 232, with victories in those six decisive states. Due to population variations, the same results would now leave a slightly tighter result (303 to 235) and the majority necessary for the presidency is 270 votes, so the combinations available to Trump are varied. Assuming there are no overturns in the rest of the States, Trump would secure the presidency by winning four of those States, but he might also win it with three or even two of the four. Polls give the former president an advantage in the majority of those States.
After the State of the Union address, Biden launched a campaign through those key states. He was in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) on Friday, in Atlanta (Georgia) on Saturday, visiting Milwaukee (Wisconsin) this Wednesday and Saginaw (Michigan) this Thursday. For her part, Vice President Kamala Harris went to Phoenix (Arizona) and Las Vegas (Nevada) last week. In his one-week marathon, Biden has also included New Hampshire, perhaps as atonement for not having participated in his primaries.
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