2023-06-19 05:01:00
Desde Washington
There is almost a year and a half left for the presidential elections in the United States, but the politics of the North American country is already fully involved in the campaigns for the primaries. In the past month, six candidates have announced their intention to compete for the Republican Party’s nomination. This weekend, President Joe Biden headlined the first act of what will be his re-election quest in Philadelphia. All these movements, however, were overshadowed by what will be the main issue that will dominate the electoral campaign between now and November 2024: the judicial processes of former President Donald Trump.
The tycoon was charged on June 8 for handling classified documents. It is the second accusation against him, after the one he received at the end of March for alleged accounting irregularities linked to paying a porn actress to silence her while he was running for president in 2016. It is the first time that the United States has faced the situation of having an imputed ex-president. One that, above all, is a candidate with a high chance of competing again for the White House.
Trump and his supporters believe that this situation is politically motivated. According to them, by charging him with keeping classified documents, the Department of Justice wants to leave out of the game what may be Biden’s main rival in 2024. In response to the indictment, the former president used his own Truth Social social network to rate Biden’s the Biden administration as “corrupt”. In his publications, he pleaded not guilty and considered that the North American country is in a “rapid and serious decline.”
The judicial processes against Trump will not end with the two accusations that he has already reaped so far this year. The former president is also currently being investigated for his role in the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, in which his followers entered the headquarters of the Congress of the North American country to prevent Biden from being certified as president. He is also being investigated in the state of Georgia for alleged interference in the 2020 elections. Despite the fact that two counts gave Biden the victory in that state in the southeast of the country, Trump insisted that there was fraud and was recorded in a conversation with the state electoral authorities asking them to find the “11,780 votes” he needed to win. Everything indicates that the news about the investigations that the tycoon is facing will last throughout the summer that is about to begin in the United States.
For those who compete against him in the Republican race, this is a problem. While the new candidates look for every opportunity to increase their exposure to the electorate, the former president will be guaranteed free media coverage whenever there is something new in the causes.
Trump already leads his party’s primary polls. According to a poll released last Friday, the Republican electorate continues to support the former president. The survey showed that although 56% of those surveyed prefer that Trump drop out of the race for the White House, 64% of Republicans will continue to support the magnate if he stays in the campaign. Less than a third said they planned to vote for another party candidate. In the same poll, 76% of self-identified Republican voters said they view Trump favorably. In other words, the accusations have little effect in changing the opinion of the base most loyal to the former president.
In addition to taking a backseat early in their campaigns, other Republican hopefuls face a double challenge: they can’t speak for the former president without risking losing support to Trump, and they can’t criticize him to differentiate themselves without provoking controversy. rejection of party voters. One who seems to have found the delicate balance is the governor of Florida and second in the polls, Ron DeSantis, who preferred to attack the Department of Justice for his alleged political motives to investigate Trump.
Meanwhile, Biden seems to have chosen a different path. The president, who is seeking re-election without much opposition within his party, formally began his campaign Saturday in Philadelphia. There, he took the opportunity to talk about his own achievements as president, something that will be central in convincing voters to re-elect him in 2024. In contrast to the campaign that led him to the White House, Biden this time still does not seem focused. in antagonizing Trump. He has a more difficult task ahead of him: convincing a country that he is the one to “finish the job” that he began two and a half years ago. According to polls, Biden has an average approval rating of 40.9%, a figure that is below what Trump measured at this point in his term.
Biden at no point in his speech mentioned the name of the former president. She referred to him only as his “predecessor” in part of the speech to draw the contrast between the way Trump viewed infrastructure investment and the work being done by the current administration in the White House.
With one of the most encouraging inflation data in almost two years, 4% annually in May, Biden now prefers to talk about the economy, one of the central concerns on the minds of Americans. In Philadelphia, the president reviewed what he evidently considers his greatest achievements in this area: He highlighted investments in infrastructure, science and technology and called himself “the most pro-union president in history.” ” from the country.
Unlike the internal Republican, the Democratic primary still has few players and there are not too many voices that oppose the figure of Biden. Unlike Trump, the president can afford to start a campaign in which he only talks about what he can do from the White House. The only challenge for him will be not to be overshadowed by all the attention that his predecessor is going to hog with his legal problems.
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