WaPo (“Biden and Trump secure their parties’ presidential nominations“):
President Biden and Donald Trump on Tuesday both secured their parties’ nominations for the presidency, formalizing a general-election rematch that many voters dread but that had appeared virtually inevitable for months.
Biden won a critical mass of delegates to the Democratic National Convention with a victory in Georgia, hours before Trump clinched the Republican delegates he needed with a victory in Washington state. The Associated Press quickly projected wins for both men in Georgia, Washington and Mississippi on Tuesday evening. Trump was also projected to win Hawaii’s GOP caucuses.
While I’ve paid rapt attention to American politics for some 45 years now, I must confess that I had all but forgotten that there were primaries yesterday, much less that both candidates were in striking distance of hitting their delegate threshold. Then again, both went into the day unopposed, so the outcome was not exactly in doubt.
And, so, the rematch begins in earnest.
The general election is effectively well underway, with Trump and Biden sparring over immigration, the economy, abortion and each other’s fitness for office. Biden’s State of the Union address last week resembled a campaign curtain-raiser as he sought to reassure voters about his age and reinvigorate swaths of the Democratic coalition that are not enthused about 2024. Trump’s campaign this week took control of the Republican National Committee and fired dozens of staffers as it sought to function as a single operation and catch up to Biden’s fundraising.
Biden is attacking Trump’s antiabortion record and disdain for many U.S. commitments abroad, and he argues that Trump poses a unique threat to American democracy after attempting to overturn the 2020 election. “Donald Trump is running a campaign of resentment, revenge, and retribution that threatens the very idea of America,” Biden said in a statement Tuesday after winning the nomination.
This is unlikely to excite the electorate but it is what it is.
After a primary race that took the candidates across the country to places including Iowa, South Carolina and California, the general election is expected to be waged largely in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia, Arizona and Nevada, with the possible addition of North Carolina. In 2020, Biden won six of those states, narrowly losing North Carolina to Trump. Recent polling, however, has shown Trump leading in many of the battleground states, as well as nationally, as Biden faces low approval ratings.
“Biden’s biggest challenge is consolidation of the base,” Democratic strategist Joel Payne said. “Obviously, Biden is going to do a pretty robust outreach to moderates and Republicans — but the first thing he needs to do is consolidate his base.”
Squaring that circle is, of course, tricky. How does one energize progressives and minority voters while persuading conservatives who disdain Trump to vote for you?
