Hotly contested US presidential race begins in earnest on 15 January

US President Joe Biden addresses an event marking the third anniversary of the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, on Friday, 5 January 2024. (Photo: Hannah Beier / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

By J Brooks Spector

8 Jan 2024

The starting bell for the elongated American electoral process that eventually leads to a presidential election will ring out in less than a week. Here is a primer for the tangled issues involved in the scrum.

Much attention in the US — and to a considerable degree, abroad as well — focuses on what reporters often call “horse race politics”. In other words, who’s up and who’s down. But this year’s race is becoming significantly more complex than the usual quadrennial contest. In fact, this year’s struggle may have the makings of becoming unique in American politics.

Yes, it is true that elections in 1828, 1876, 1912, 1968 and 2000 (as well as 2020 to a degree) had elements of great drama and conflict arising out of deeply disputed contests. But, seemingly, nothing has prepared us for what we are about to endure in this year’s contest.

For starters, among Republicans vying for the presidential nomination, Donald Trump remains in pole position. This is a man who seems to have done little since he left the White House in 2021 in high dudgeon, save nurse his grievances by pushing the demonstrably false narrative that the 2020 election had been stolen from him by the malign forces of the “deep state.”

It is very rare for a former president to return to the electoral landscape to engage in a new challenge to return to the White House. (Only Grover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt did so historically, and only the former succeeded.)

Despite facing 91 charges listed in four different criminal indictments filed in several states, as well as an ongoing civil trial over massive financial misbehaviour, Trump continues to maintain a comfortable lead over his putative challengers. These are Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; former UN ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and, much further behind, former New Jersey governor Chris Christie and biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.

Trump’s rivals

us elections Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida and 2024 Republican presidential candidate, at a campaign event in Grimes, Iowa, on Sunday, 7 January 2024. (Photo: Kathryn Gamble / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Trump’s challengers have had to confront the unenviable task of debating the former president while he has not been in the room. Moreover, they have the unenviable task of trying to embrace a raucous Republican base that has consistently favoured Donald Trump — even as these other candidates have been trying to distance or differentiate themselves somehow from that divisive figure who continues to hold on to the allegiances of that base.

DeSantis has been trying to portray himself as just as tough as the former president, but without all the chaos that seems to embrace him — and be embraced by him.

But DeSantis’ campaign has stumbled and stuttered right from the start, what with its botched official announcement on social media and the distinct impression given to many that he doesn’t enjoy the idea of campaigning for votes and support.

At this point, at least in the polling data, he is battling to stay competitive for second place in the Iowa caucus voting on 15 January. A weak showing in Iowa could presage disaster for him in the following two primary elections — New Hampshire and South Carolina — that will quickly follow that Iowa caucus vote.

us elections Nikki Haley, former ambassador to the United Nations and 2024 Republican presidential candidate (right) and Chris Sununu, governor of New Hampshire, during a campaign event in Des Moines, Iowa, on Friday, 5 January 2024. (Photo: Kathryn Gamble / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Meanwhile, Nikki Haley has been moving upward in preliminary polling, and she is campaigning furiously to achieve a respectable showing in Iowa, and then bolster her standing in the next two campaign stops.

Importantly, New Hampshire’s primary election is an open primary. That means independent voters can also participate in voting in the Republican primary, and South Carolina is Haley’s home state where her name recognition (and support) may be about as strong as Trump’s is.

However, his support among that cohort of core Republicans may yet be a stumbling block for the South Asian American candidate as she tries to present herself as a strong, knowledgeable, articulate alternative to a Trump candidacy.

She has also demonstrated a reluctance to be too critical of the former president, lest she frightens away that same Republican base of dwellers in that alternative political universe where Donald Trump is a put-upon, much-prosecuted defender of “truth, justice, and the American way.”

In the past week, Haley demonstrated in one highly publicised stumble that she can be dislodged from her path, despite her reputation for a steely composure in debates.

This came about in her response to a young questioner who had asked about the primary cause of the American Civil War of 1861-65. The easy answer, of course, would have been to say the Civil War came about because eleven southern states sought to preserve slavery.

This exchange occurred in one of those intimate group settings Iowa is known for hosting in the run-up to their caucus, but her fumble was quickly broadcast widely. After missing an easy home run pitch, she spent several days tidying things up, blaming her mess on a Democratic Party plant rather than her brain freeze.

Read more in Daily Maverick: The 2024 US presidential election is coming — is the world ready for it?

For his part, Donald Trump then stirred the pot, saying the dispute that led to the Civil War could have been negotiated away (by freeing some of the slaves but not others?) by someone like himself.

Along the way, he added that the Obamacare expansion of government-backed medical insurance has been an abject failure (absent any proof to this assertion) and pinning the failure to replace it on the late Senator John McCain, with Trump snickering that McCain “couldn’t raise his hand” to vote to end it. (Never mind the awkward fact the Trump administration never had an actual alternative to propose in its place. Further, McCain literally could not raise his arm because of injuries he sustained as a POW in the Vietnam conflict. Ugly stuff.)

us elections Former US President Donald Trump speaks at an event in Houston, Texas on 2 November 2023. (Photo: EPA-EFE / Adam Davis)

To get the full flavour of Trump’s current version of trash talk, contemplate the words of Marty Baron, former editor of the Washington Post and the Boston Globe, speaking on NPR when he said, “All you have to do is listen to what Donald Trump has been talking about; what he says he’s going to do in another administration. He’s the only politician I’ve heard actually talk about suspending the Constitution.

“He’s talked about using the military to suppress entirely legitimate protests using the Insurrection Act. He’s talked about bringing treason charges against the then-outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He’s talked about bringing treason charges against Comcast, the owner of NBC and MSNBC.

“He’s talked explicitly about weaponising the government against his political enemies. And, of course, he continues to talk about crushing an independent press. So all of those, by nature, by definition, are authoritarian in nature.”

Gloves off

us elections US President Joe Biden addresses an event marking the third anniversary of the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol, at Montgomery County Community College in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, on Friday, 5 January 2024. (Photo: Hannah Beier / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Meanwhile, although incumbent President Joe Biden faces no real challenge for his Democratic Party’s nomination for a second term of office (and some states may even cancel their primaries for Democrats as a result), Biden remains stuck in very mediocre polling data — at best.

A total of 215,000 new jobs were added in the most recent monthly statistical data; the previous month is the 22nd consecutive month of unemployment under 4%; the earnings of the bottom levels of the workforce are staying ahead of inflation, and the country is closing in inflation below 3%, year on year, it remains puzzling that polling data says more people believe in Trump’s ability to manage the economy than the incumbent.

As a result, the president’s efforts to focus on this economic message – what his team has called “Bidenomics” – is being supplanted to a degree by speaking about Trump and his plans, ideas and values as fundamental threats to the nation’s democratic traditions.

In his speech at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania (actually in nearby Blue Bell), a hallowed spot in the country’s history that had served as the winter quarters for George Washington’s bedraggled troops in 1777, Biden struck a tough stance, saying Trump is willing to sacrifice democracy in his pursuit of authoritarian values.

https://www.youtube.com/live/0F10bey4b2Q?si=0SkDniqY6LpTdIDT

Following years during which Biden barely even mentioned Trump’s name, that ship has clearly sailed.

Going forward, we shall be hearing much more from Biden about Trump’s plan to destroy America’s democratic traditions. Gloves-off time. On Monday, he will be speaking at the South Carolina church where congregants had been murdered in an act of racial hatred — presumably, he will be preaching the virtues of democratic values, inclusion, racial tolerance and economic success in the Biden era.

The 14th Amendment

As part of the larger electoral landscape, there is a roster of other issues and concerns that may confound America’s political life in 2024.

Besides Donald Trump’s ongoing criminal and civil court cases, two states — Colorado and Maine — have elected to ban Trump from their primary ballots on grounds he violated Article 3 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution, barring anyone who had engaged in insurrection against the US from taking federal office or state legislative seats.

The clause was originally designed to prevent former Confederate officials and army officers from taking office as they had violated their oaths of office by taking up arms against the federal government in the Civil War. (A comprehensive review of the issues surrounding this provision can be found in a new review by the Congressional Research Service.)

The Trump team insists this ban should not apply as he, Trump, was president, not some low-level officer, and, in any case, he had not been found guilty of any such crime.

The issue is now bound for the Supreme Court on an urgent basis.

As a thought experiment, just imagine what might happen if some states allowed him on the ballot while others did not. Or, even worse for any national equanimity, perhaps, if he is banned and then almost inevitably violent demonstrations take place in support of him, demanding the court reverse its decision. A mess, for sure.

There is yet another pending issue the Supreme Court will inevitably have to rule on as well — before this electoral cycle is finished. This is Trump’s legal team’s claim that as president he should have immunity for everything he did, and so all of his pending trials are — or should be — moot.

But if such a doctrine were credible, then no presidential action would ever be off limits (and thus no impeachment process would be possible). Such a position would mean, for example, Richard Nixon would have never needed the pardon he received from his successor, Gerald Ford, after Nixon had resigned in disgrace due to his actions during the Watergate scandal. Both of these cases will be watched closely for their effects on Donald Trump’s future.

Immigration and reproductive rights

As for the issues that so far seem to be most important in driving voter ideas and their preoccupations, two now stand out ahead of the rest — one cutting for Republicans and one for Democrats. These are the snowballing border and immigration crisis and women’s reproductive rights.

The growing anger over border policy is an increasingly dangerous one for Democrats, while reproductive rights make for difficult terrain for most Republicans.

These two questions seem to be riding ahead of concerns about the economy or foreign policy — although a very subjective judgment about Joe Biden’s age and mental acuity and a possible need for the vice president, Kamala Harris, to step up suddenly preoccupies some fraction of the electorate.

Donald Trump, of course, is only a few years younger than Biden and so a deeper question for the pundit class is why America seems unable to pass along its leadership baton to the next generation.

Still, one version of a foreign policy issue mixed with the national budget process is an important — albeit complicated — issue. The federal budget is due to expire under the current continuing resolution passed late in 2023 in just a few weeks, and entangled with that is a still-unachieved bargain to fund military and economic aid to Ukraine, military sales and aid to Israel, and an overhaul of immigration and border control policy.

Republicans are holding the budget and the two foreign policy issues essentially hostage for achieving major changes for the border control policies that have come under severe stress and pressure from continuing waves of immigrants reaching the southern border from Latin America and beyond. (Late on Sunday evening, there was apparently a broad agreement on moving forward on the budget, but the devil is clearly going to be hiding in the details.)

Woven into this border issue is a call to impeach Alejandro Majorkas, the secretary of homeland security, over his inability to control immigration.

There is also, as an irritant, a pending impeachment inquiry, albeit without any real charges, against the incumbent president, as well as an investigation into his unfortunate son’s very messy financial affairs — on the presumption that somehow, somewhere, Republican congressmen will find financial improprieties on the part of the president connected to his son’s infractions.

We should know more about that Republican race for the nomination after Iowa citizens gather in their community, church, and school halls all across the state for that time-consuming process of determining who will gain that state’s relatively small number of delegates to the Republican convention. Those results will then, presumably, have an impact on the temper of Republican voters in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and then beyond on to the big haul of delegates in many states from Super Tuesday in March.

Meanwhile, Biden will deliver his annual State of the Union address on 7 March. That speech will come just two days after that Super Tuesday primary election day.

As a bonus, Biden’s speech will come just three days after the start of Donald Trump’s trial in Washington for conspiracy to subvert the 2020 election.

In all of this, we haven’t even spoken about the congressional races that will be fought in the 2024 election that may change party control in both houses of Congress, as well as a confusing welter of possible or declared third- or fourth-party candidates.

Strap yourselves in — this will be one helluva ride. DM

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Gloves off

The 14th Amendment

Immigration and reproductive rights