Biden & Trump close in on rematch but, primaries are no indication on how Voters will franchise in 2024, 8 months still to go
Biden and Trump win Michigan primaries setting up a potential rematch of
2020 but, the party voting on partisan lines need not translate into defeat or
victory for either in 2024.
Ashe N Ayer (TNA)
Both US President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump have won
the primaries in Michigan , while the former is one sided, the latter is
beating Indian origin rival Nikki Haley for the 4th time in a row,
but she wont drop out of the race as 18 more states are to go.
The point to be noted is that primaries are only voting by dedicated
party workers and supporters and its along partisan lines , so it cannot be
taken as a trend for a victory for either of the two opponents- Biden or Trump,
both of whom half the country does not want to contest. The 18 40 age group demographic
wants young blood, some body younger such as Nikki Haley from the Republicans
and Gavin Newsom , the California governor. Its almost certain thse two will
face off each other in the 2028 elections when neither Biden nor Trump can
contest either for crossing the two term threshold or the age factor.
The latest battelines that are drawn between Biden and Trump are their
visits to the southern US border along Texas, Arizona and California, where a
large number of migrants have poured in across the porous borders fleeing from
their countries such as Mexico, Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua in Central
America due to fear of persecution by
dictatorships or unstable political regimes.
Two presidents in the
midst of their political campaign for the 2024 race to the whitel house ,
though they are yet to be officially monminated by the parties, have put the
southern border on their whistle stop tour . Both want to highlight how the migrant
surgesis central to November 8th’s election, what US publications
describe as a spectacle that goes to reason why America’s polarized politics
has for decades failed to fix a broken immigration system.
Joe Biden and his predecessor and possible
successor, Donald Trump, will tour different sectors of the border in
Texas as they spell out duelling arguments on what everyone now agrees is a
crisis. They’re already feuding over their first-term records on immigration,
and their visits will mark the most visible and intense manifestation yet of
their likely rematch per reports filed by the US news agency CNN network.
Trump hopes to visit Eagle Pass, scene of a border showdown between the
Biden administration and Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Trump hopes to make
grim portrayal of a nation under siege from illegal migrats who are mostly as
he claims invaders and criminals peddling drugs and coyotes bringing in illegal
migrants for slave workers and flesh trade.
Trumps narrative thus hopes to propel him to the White House in 2024 as
a strongman who will hand down retribution to these alleged criminals as he did
pole vault to presidency in 2016 but, failed to erect the the Great Wall along
Mexico to keep migrants out. Trump is promising mass deportations and detention
camps if he wins back the White House and is unleashing some of the most
extreme anti-migrant rhetoric in modern American history.
On the flip side , President Biden goes on the defensive over the democratic
“ Open Borders “ policy that he kept for most of his term, when he visits Brownsville
following his new found embrace of tougher rhetoric and policies like the bipartisan on
immigration reforms which Trump is egging GOP members not to endorse . The president
hopes to turn the tables on Republicans, including Trump, who crashed a
bipartisan Senate bill brimming with many conservative goals, apparently to
deprive him of an election-year victory.
CNN analysts have reported that Biden’s first visit to the border in 13
months follows tense discussions in his inner circle as the immigration crisis has
morphed into a political liability long after the White House sought brush it
into the background. His aides believe the derailing of the immigration bill
gives him an opening to hammer the GOP.
Biden and Trumps visits to the border provides immense photo ops for both in the treacherous ppolitics of the border but certainly will not help stem the flow of migrants from the borders. Trump and Biden’s rival border visits will almost certainly do little to combat the flow of desperate people fleeing economic deprivation, environmental disasters, drug and gang violence and political persecution, which is confronting developed states the world over and almost certain to worsen in the years ahead per US agency reports.
Biden’s border visit however is a bold step that reflects a more aggressive campaign
strategy from a soft spoken politician who dares to speak but afraid to wound
in like Trump who is on assault. Biden is courting desperately Black Americans
and unionized workers (auto workers and health care workers unions who struck
work) and aggressively confront Trump in recent weeks. Biden will top it all
with his annual State of the Union address next week before national TV
audience where he will definitely attack GOP lawmakers for failing to act to
end the border crisis.
Biden’s chutzpah has irritated Trump, who deludes himself with being one
with one upmanship game that he thinks gives him the edge with monopoly on
political gamesmanship.
A CNN poll earlier this month has shown that just 30% of Americans
approve of Biden’s performance on the
issue and 79% of voters – including majorities across party lines – say that
the border situation has rached a crisis.
One has to admit that conservative media and politicians have hyped and
trolled Biden with missleading coverage on what they termed migrant caravan
invasions and open borders. Republican governors like Abbott and Florida Gov.
Ron DeSantis seem to have to have succeeded in nationalizing the issue transporting busloads of undocumented
migrants from the border to democratic jurisdictions and cities such as New
York, already bristling with a huge population putting its mayor Eric Adams
under great stress and pressure to handle the migrants.
The border issue apart , a major issue troubling the minds of voters ,
especially the youth as amongst the black and Hispanic populations and
Palestinians and other arab countries is the steadfast Biden support to Israel
in the Hamas theatre of war where reportedly 29,000 innocent civilians in Gaza
have lost their lives particularly women and children per ministry of health of
Palestinian authority.
The 2020 census has also brought some changes of concern to both the
parties. The redistricting of constituencies based on demographics –
populations have moved from one state to another during the pandemic – has
greatly upset the usual voting blocs. As per the new census the white
population is now at over. See table below of how the demographics have changed
since the 2020 census:
|
Characteristic |
White |
Black or African American |
American Indian and Alaska Native |
Asian |
Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific
Islander |
Two or more races |
|
2022 |
251.6 |
45.4 |
4.38 |
20.95 |
0.88 |
10.07 |
|
2021 |
251.44 |
45.1 |
4.33 |
20.47 |
0.86 |
9.82 |
|
2020 |
251.64 |
44.91 |
4.33 |
20.23 |
0.85 |
9.6 |
See the jump in 201 to 2020. Compare with above table.
|
2010 |
242.24 |
40.36 |
3.75 |
15.26 |
0.68 |
7.04 |
While white population has jumped from 242.24 to just 251. 6 million ,
say 10 million, Black or African population has jumped from 44.91 to 45.4
million, that’s nearly 9 million, keepinc pace, whites are again divided,
blacks are not, Asian population has
jumped from 15.26 million to 20.95 million, by close to six million. Combine
Asian and African, traditional democratic voters , the weigh in at 15 million ,
5 million more than a divided 10 million whites. Gallup polls indicating Trump
is romping home with a huge win could be a whimper like the 2022 Red Tsunami
because actual voting at the ballot boxes count and not poll surveys.
The White population has increased only marginally from 251.64 million
in 2020 to 251.6 million in 2022. Whereas Black or African American populations
has increased from 44.91 million to 45.4 million, a substantial rise of 0.70
million. The Asian population has risen from 20.23 million to 20.95 million, 0,
72 million a big jump.
Asians including the Japanese, South East Asians, Indians, constitute a
bulk of the Democrats voting blocks. If they are angry with the Democrats on
Israel , they will not vote for Republicans but for 3rd party
candidates such as Robert Kennedy Jr, grandnephew of the former President John
F Kennedy, who will suck votes from both Republican and Democrats.
That leaves the 15% of voters in the 10 swing states to make up their
minds. Their votes are mostly likely
going the Democrats way as the party’s agenda on restoring Abortion Rights of
Women, good employment rates, receding inflation, and fall in gasoline prices
that returned democrats in the off year elections last year and the November
mid terms before that that narrowed the republican win in 2022 to the house is
bound to play out again as it did in Ohio, Kentucky and Maine. If Trump is
convicted in the election subversion cases in four jurisdictions besided having
been fined and lincences cancelled to do business in New York that knocks the
bottom of his successful businessman image , the 15% swing vote would go to the
democrats to win by a whisker. The swing states that hold the key to 2024
Presidential elections are: Arizona, Michigan, Carolina north and south, Pennsylvania,
Colarodo, Nevada, Ohio, Virginia.
Swing
states, also known as battleground states, are states that could “swing” to
either Democratic or Republican candidates depending on the election.
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