Michael Dwyer/AP Photo
A voter enters the polling station in Kennebunk, Maine, Tuesday, March 5, 2024. Super Tuesday elections were held in 16 states and one U.S. territory.
The presidential election is now a race between the lesser of two vulnerabilities—Trump’s accelerating dementia and the risk that he will be convicted of a felony prior to Election Day, and the perception of Biden as frail and ineffectual. Of these handicaps, Biden has far more capacity to make changes for the better.
Nikki Haley has suspended her campaign, but she did what she needed to do. Haley demonstrated that a nontrivial fraction of Republicans will not vote for Trump. She also consistently beat polls, suggesting that there is a stronger never-Trump vote among GOP voters than pollsters detect.
Should Trump falter between now and the Republican convention in July, despite having been the last Republican challenger standing and the only other one with delegates, Haley will not be the nominee. Rather, there will be a MAGA free-for-all for the role of the true heir to Trump.
Haley’s relative success in moderate states especially among women—she won Vermont and carried about 35 percent of the vote in Massachusetts, Virginia, and Colorado—underscores Biden’s opportunity with Republican moderates and especially with women, and not just on the issue of reproductive rights. So the takeaway from Super Tuesday is that it’s Biden’s to lose.
But what does he need to do to win? It goes without saying that he needs to project more strength and vigor. On the issues, the State of the Union will signal whether he is willing to go big.
Leaks suggest that populist, anti-corporate themes will be a major part of the speech, such as the order capping credit card late fees and an attack on corporate price-gouging as anti-inflation medicine. We need to hear a lot more of this. Though Trump stands for chaos and Biden represents competent government, this is not the season for centrist moderation. It’s a moment for populism, and progressive populism is needed to defeat neofascist populism.
Biden also needs to demonstrate his leadership, toughness, and humanity by standing up to Netanyahu. Not only must there be a cease-fire and an end to the brutalization of civilians in Gaza. Biden needs to define Bibi’s proposed invasion of Rafah as a red line that the United States will not allow Israel to cross.
Rather than bragging about how good the economy is, which is not the way most Americans experience it, we need to hear more about what Biden will do in a second term if the voters re-elect him and a Democratic Congress.
The limited student debt relief, the modest increase in child care outlays, the abbreviated child allowance that was in effect for just a year, the partial outlays on job-creating infrastructure—these are previews and down payments on what can be done in a progressive second term. Merely the act of going bigger signals greater vigor.
The media has a role to play in this. The press needs to cease pouncing on every minor Biden slip and stop writing off Trump’s far more incoherent and dangerous raves as just Trump being Trump. With the election now down to two candidates, maybe the press will start doing its job.
One other piece of hopeful news: Trump is a unique specimen, and his movement is personalist. If Trump can be beaten in 2024, either by his own collapse or in the November election, there is no obvious successor and MAGA will likely fragment.
