The election rematch few Americans want started in earnest Wednesday as former President Donald Trump wrapped up the Republican nomination and rival Nikki Haley suspended her campaign.
Trump has been working for months to turn back primary challenges and get Republicans behind his comeback campaign for the White House after four years out of power.
That goal was sealed after he scored a sweeping victory in the Super Tuesday primaries.
President Biden was already the presumptive 2024 Democratic nominee even before he brushed off nominal primary challenges to his reelection bid.
Now, Biden hopes to utilize Thursday night’s State of the Union address to kick off his presidential campaign against Trump, a contrast he hopes will rally voters behind him despite concerns about his age and other potential political weak spots.
Here are some takeaways:
What will Joe say in SOTU?
Biden has a rare national platform to make his opening argument to Americans for why he deserves four more years in the White House.
Look for Biden to boast about his achievements and to pitch himself as uniquely qualified to lead the country and the world through a challenging period — and paint a sharp contrast with the chaos under Trump.
The stakes are quite high.
With voters on both sides of the aisle concerned about Biden’s age, any perceived gaffe could harden pre-existing opinions that he is just too old to serve.
On the other hand, Biden has the opportunity to cut through the political noise and demonstrate his often-underrated political skills.
Who benefits from the general election matchup being set?
Pundits have been puzzled by the persistently high number of Americans who did not believe that Biden and Trump would actually be their parties’ candidates for the White House.
Democratic strategists in particular believe that Biden could benefit from the matchup between the two men now being set in stone.
Team Biden believes that Democratic voters may start focusing on Trump, a candidate many of them loathe and is perhaps the biggest motivator for them to get behind anyone running against him.
Can Trump rally Republican critics who backed Nikki Haley?
For Trump, the immediate challenge is to win over Republicans who supported Nikki Haley in the just-completed primary fight.
“Clearly there are a quarter to a third of the people who voted in the Republican primaries … who simply won’t accept him or don’t wan’t him back in the White House,” Larry Sabato, a University of Virginia political analyst, said on CNN.
If past is prologue, Trump will likely seek to project strength with the Republican base as way to bring “traditional Republicans” back in the fold, Sabato added.
But Republican strategist Doug Heye noted that it won’t be a cakewalk for Trump, given that he deliberately sought to push away Haley supporters by declaring them “permanently banned” from his MAGA movement.
“That is dumb,” Heye told the News. “Anyone wearing a ‘Permanently Banned’ T-shirt is unlikely to return to the fold of the person insulting them.”
It appears that Trump’s mounting legal woes may not be the massive political headache they once seemed certain to pose.
So far, Trump’s indictment on 91 felonies and his four looming criminal trials have not damaged his political standing.
If anything, he has succeeded in using the trials to rally his supporters behind the idea that he is being unfairly targeted by liberal prosecutors.
Can Biden unify a fractured Democratic coalition?
The incumbent president has a unity problem of his own.
Biden is facing serious dissatisfaction with Democratic voters, some of whom are disenchanted over his handling of the economy or blame him for the influx of migrants across the southern border and into northern cities.
The most visible split is over Biden’s handling of Israel’s war in Gaza. Critics have mounted modestly successful campaigns to register opposition to the war in states like Michigan, where 13% of Democrats shunned him to vote for “uncommitted” delegates.
Polls show Biden suffering from relatively low approval with Latinos, Blacks and young voters, all key portions of the Democratic base.
That’s a flashing danger sign for the incumbent. But it’s also an opportunity for Biden to win back voters who traditionally back the Democrat in the end.
Sabato notes that the White House needs to do a much better job communicating his policy achievements on issues like the economy and abortion rights.
“They have got to use the campaign and the State of the Union address to make it clear what they have actually done,” he said.
