The next US presidential election will take place a year today – and the Democrats think it will be “very close”.
A memo from the party hierarchy is consistent with opinion polls that indicate a close contest between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, the frontrunner to be the Republican nominee.
Mr Biden, spending a working weekend at his Rehoboth beach house in Delaware, has been briefed on the Israel/Gaza situation by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.
How that conflict and the war in Ukraine play into a year of campaigning will depend on their course and consequences.
Biden’s stewardship of US involvement in international conflict will be but one factor influencing the minds of voters, even if it’s lower down a list of campaign issues than the economy, jobs, abortion and US democracy itself.
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Trump & Biden: 2 distinct cases, 1 political wedge
Add all of that to the age of the incumbent and questions about infirmity. Opponents of Donald Trump say he faces similar questions.
In terms of the strategy of winning an election, Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, wrote in her election memo that it would mirror the tactics that won in 2020 – to draw a contrast with what she called “MAGA extremism”.
The Make America Great Again movement that once carried Donald Trump to the White House gives him momentum still, in spite of legal travails that see him facing 91 charges across four criminal trials in the coming months.
They come on top of one civil case in which he was found liable for sexual abuse, and another in which he was found liable for fraud, after falsely inflating the value of Trump properties.
What will decide the election outcome?
İçerik Tablosu
To explore what might shape the next 12 months, we brought together politicians from both sides of the House of Representatives – Democrat Adam Smith, and Republican Victoria Spartz.
ON ISSUES
Adam Smith: Certainly abortion is a huge issue. The efforts to ban abortion nationwide has certainly motivated a lot of people to vote. That will be a motivating factor. Overall, I think the two biggest issues are going to be the economy and democracy. If Donald Trump is re-elected president, a lot of us are concerned that it will be the end of our democracy and I think people share that concern.
Victoria Spratz: I wish we would spend more time trying to unite and do something good for the country. We’re not dealing with border security. This is a very serious issue. We want to help the rest of the world but we need to keep our republic strong.
ON AGE
Victoria Spratz: People age differently, but I think people can observe and make decisions themselves. Who is much better, who we’ve got, who is affected by age? I don’t have to say, to make a comment on that.
Adam Smith: Trump’s just as old as Biden, like two years short. So age really isn’t a factor in that contest. At this point, I think both Trump and Biden are old, but both of them seem perfectly capable of doing their job. I think it’s the policies that are really going to drive this.
ON INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT
Adam Smith: To be perfectly honest, most elections are about domestic issues. I don’t know that it’s going to have a huge impact. People want to know that there’s stable leadership, but I think they’re going to care a lot more about the economy, about abortion, about the strength of our democracy