2023-11-09 08:56:05
WashingtonThe first question asked tonight by the moderators of the third Republican primary debate, in Miami (Florida), was directed to the second candidate according to the polls, the governor of the host state, Ron DeSantis: “Why the Republicans should they choose you and not Donald Trump to face Joe Biden a year from now?”. The same question has been answered by the other four opponents present: Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy, Chris Christie and Tim Scott.
But the arguments they have recently been able to provide will serve to convince them in trumpseven those who don’t have them all: Trump overwhelmingly leads the polls, with 56.5% of Republican supportand DeSantis, the only one remotely capable of standing up to him, is viewed from afar with 13.9% of the supports.
This advantage explains the long shadow of the former president, as well as his absence, once again, in the third primary debate. Trump – who on Monday testified in the courts of New York for continued fraud, in his umpteenth legal case – has again counterscheduled with a rally a few kilometers away, in Hialeah (Florida).
The tycoon has reason to be optimistic: if the election were held today, he would beat Biden in five of the six states considered key to winning the presidential election, according to the latest Siena College survey by The New York Times, which has caused an earthquake in the heart of the Democratic Party. Specifically, Trump would win in Nevada, Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and Pennsylvania, five states that Biden won by a narrow margin in 2020.
Age punishes Biden, but not Trump
The director of Siena College and head of the survey, Don Levy, assures the ARA that they paint thin for the Democrat: “Biden not only loses in five of the six swing statesbut also his approval ratings are even lower than Trump’s at the same heights in the last election.” According to Levy, age is the main factor, despite only three years separating him from his rival : “71% of voters, and 50% of Democrats, believe he is too old to be president, and 62% see him lacking the necessary mental acuity.”
Not only does Biden lose in five of the six swing states, but his approval ratings are even lower than Trump’s at the same heights in the last election.”
Don Levy Principal of Sienna College
If elected, Biden, already the oldest president in US history, would finish his second term at 86. If Trump were to win, he would be 82 years old. However, “only 38% respond to our polls that Trump is too old: it is a significant difference”, notes Levy, who explains this result because “the Trump campaign has been effective in caricaturing Biden as a senile old man – with expressions like sleepy Joe (sleepy Joe)–” and because “his simple and direct language connects with more layers of society”.
But age is not the only explanation: “when we ask voters what they will base their vote on, the economy wins by a narrow margin. And it turns out that voters trust Trump 20% more on this issue,” he points out the principal of Siena College. In recent history, American society has trusted the Republicans more in pocket matters, but now the high inflation experienced during the Biden mandate also weighs.
An inflation that has been a global phenomenon, driven by the reactivation of consumption after the pandemic and by the increase in energy prices following the war in Ukraine. So you can’t put all the blame on the manager: prices reached their highest peak since the 1980s last June (9.1% year-on-year), since then they have been gradually declining to 3, 7% current.
No alternatives?
None of the more than probable candidates for the presidency, neither Biden nor Trump, convince the Americans. But at this point, when the elections are barely a year away, it doesn’t seem likely that viable alternatives will emerge either. In this scenario, the name of Robert Kennedy appears, the last representative of the most influential political dynasty in the country’s history, who is running as an independent candidate after withdrawing from the Democratic primaries due to lack of support.
“When you ask voters to choose between Biden, Trump and Kennedy, it’s surprising that the latter, who is not a big name in US politics, gets close to 25% of the support,” Levy points out. “He’s got numbers we haven’t seen in a third-party candidate since Ross Perot in the 1990s, which shows the discontent with the two leading candidates,” he concludes.
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