Here’s a look at the state of the 2024 presidential race a day before the uber-primary known as Super Tuesday.
President Joe Biden is a centrist candidate with trouble on his left flank. Former President Donald Trump has a similar problem on the other side of the fence.
The moderate Republican center and progressives on the Democratic left present a mirror-image challenge for Biden and Trump, the likely 2024 Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, respectively. Problems abound for both parties, and Michigan has laid the table. Trump won Michigan’s recent presidential primary with 68.1% of the vote. Among Democrats, Biden prevailed with 81.1%.
Trump has always practiced a campaign of “juice the base” — beat that drum and turn out the troops. Yet, he has refused to adhere to a time-honored practice of American presidential elections. That is, in the primaries, give the goodies to your base, and they will award you the nomination. Then pivot to the center and allow moderate voters to carry you across the finish line.
Trump’s behavior turns this practice on its head. He is an immovable boulder and won’t morph into a warm and fuzzy candidate. Listen to his never-changing, rampaging rhetoric. From primary election to general election, we see no twists, turns or nuance in him. He will pound the Democrats over the head with verbal brickbats.
Yet Trump’s dilemma is with GOP voters of the moderate persuasion. They hear his jeremiads and wonder: “Can I vote for this guy in November?” His rhetoric spooks the 20% to 40% of the party who are Romney Republicans. In 2012, Utah U.S. Sen. Mitt Romney, the patrician, moderate globalist, swept them to the party nomination. Those Republicans are now supporting former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, as they reject the feverishly isolationist rhetoric that is Trump.
It would behoove Trump to look at the results in Michigan.
Yes, he won handily, but Haley grabbed 26.6% of votes. These voters may refuse to support Trump in November and may be open to Biden’s entreaties. That’s where Biden can make his move. Trump “lost 40% of the primary vote in all of the early states,” The Associated Press quoted Haley as saying last week at a campaign event in Bloomington, Minnesota. “You can’t win the general election if you can’t win that 40%.”
Can Trump win the general election by ignoring and insulting those voters? If I were a Trump handler, I would tap his shoulder and ask: “Do you want to be in a jail cell or the White House?” (One small note of optimism for the Trump contingent: He criticized Haley for supporting the Alabama Supreme Court’s controversial ruling on in vitro fertilization. It’s not much, but it’s a start.)
Biden, meanwhile, dwells in the land of moderation, and the Michigan primary results notably called out his lack of progressive credentials.
Intransigence in the Israeli government in Gaza and Biden’s centrist ways are souring his prospects with Arab Americans and younger voters. More than 100,000 people chose “uncommitted” in the Michigan primary — or 13% of the vote. Biden’s prospects are clouded by the storm in Israel. He must carry Michigan to win the general election in November.
Michigan’s large Arab American population makes that state an anomaly. Those voters are angry at the Biden administration for allowing Israel to run roughshod over Gaza in its war with Hamas. The toll is unacceptable — at least 30,000 civilian casualties so far. Michigan’s college towns appear to be another weak link in Biden’s chain. That may be attributable to Biden’s age, surely a turnoff for younger voters.
Democrats are fond of protest votes. In 2012, Barack Obama was the last Democratic incumbent to run for reelection. In the 2012 Michigan primary, the “uncommitted” option drew 11% of that vote.
Biden is in the right spot to win. The middle is where it’s at. He can pull Republican voters who cannot abide Trump. However, Biden can’t be seen as catering to what some on the right would call “those communists, socialists and lefties.” He must toe the line and make a highly calibrated appeal to the left of his party, treading carefully on hot-button issues such as immigration, the war in Gaza, crime — and Biden’s age. Let’s hope that those in his left-leaning base fear Trump enough that they will leave ideology behind and vote for sanity.
Speaking of age, Biden’s biggest unsolvable challenge is his vice president, Kamala Harris, who is seen as a liability. Her popularity ratings are low, and moderate voters, especially in the GOP, have a visceral dislike for her and view her as too liberal. Her presence on the ticket could be fatal, given Biden’s elderly status inviting the prospect that Harris could become president. That’s why Haley has repeatedly deployed Harris as a scare tactic in the Republican primaries.
“My bet is 30 days from now, I don’t think Joe Biden’s gonna be the nominee,” Haley predicted last month while campaigning in South Carolina. “You’re gonna have a female president of the United States.”
Unlikely, but Haley’s implication is clear.
Laura Washington is a political commentator and longtime Chicago journalist. Her columns appear in the Tribune each Monday. Write to her at LauraLauraWashington@gmail.com.
Laura Washington: The middle is where it’s at heading into Super Tuesday
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0
04.03.2024
Here’s a look at the state of the 2024 presidential race a day before the uber-primary known as Super Tuesday.
President Joe Biden is a centrist candidate with trouble on his left flank. Former President Donald Trump has a similar problem on the other side of the fence.
The moderate Republican center and progressives on the Democratic left present a mirror-image challenge for Biden and Trump, the likely 2024 Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, respectively. Problems abound for both parties, and Michigan has laid the table. Trump won Michigan’s recent presidential primary with 68.1% of the vote. Among Democrats, Biden prevailed with 81.1%.
Trump has always practiced a campaign of “juice the base” — beat that drum and turn out the troops. Yet, he has refused to adhere to a time-honored practice of American presidential elections. That is, in the primaries, give the goodies to your base, and they will award you the nomination. Then pivot to the center and allow moderate voters to carry you across the finish line.
Trump’s behavior turns this practice on its head. He is an immovable boulder and won’t morph into a warm and fuzzy candidate. Listen to his never-changing, rampaging rhetoric. From primary election to general election, we see no twists, turns or nuance in him. He will pound the Democrats over........
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