President Joe Biden is one step closer to a rematch with former President Donald Trump in the 2024 general election in the aftermath of Super Tuesday, but the night more importantly outlined several narratives that could pose problems for Biden come November.
While the biggest primary night of 2024 provided at least one surprise, in the form of American Samoa primary winner Jason Palmer, Biden’s struggles to overcome voters’ concerns about the Israel-Hamas war, lower independent support, and a rematch with Trump, which is likely going to come down to a messaging battle as both candidates try to paint their opponents as the worse option, all present possible headaches for his reelection bid.
Here’s what you need to know.
The Gaza Problem Is Real
Biden took home victory in all but one of 16 states and territories holding primaries Tuesday night but faced significant opposition in seven of those contests, pegged to his handling of Israel’s war in Gaza.
Voters in Alabama, Colorado, Iowa, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, and Tennessee were all offered the opportunity to vote for some form of “uncommitted” candidate beyond Biden, author Marianne Williamson, and Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN).
And voters in all those states opted to vote for “uncommitted” at much higher rates than they did in 2020. Minnesota and North Carolina presented the largest warning signs for Biden, with the former, another relatively high Arab and Muslim population state, seeing more than 20% of voters backing “uncommitted,” and the former, a critical swing state, clocking in above 12%.
Biden will likely encounter similar opposition in Democrats’ next two primaries, Georgia and Washington, on March 12, though there is a glimmer of hope for the president.
There is a strong likelihood Biden could welcome this disaffected section of his base back into a 2024 coalition should he make good on his efforts to broker another protracted, if not permanent, ceasefire, a point the president will likely stress in his State of the Union address on Thursday.
Missin’ Independents
Independent voters have more than a puncher’s chance of determining the outcome of any election, let alone one where the top two candidates have glaring deficiencies.
Biden’s campaign published a memo Wednesday morning explaining how they plan to spend the remainder of the year blanketing independent voters with targeted advertising on television, radio, and digital platforms in addition to hosting in-person events in key states and districts.
Biden would appear to have the funds to see that plan through to fruition. Biden’s campaign and consolidated super PACs ended February with a nearly $50 million cash advantage on Team Trump, and outside Democratic groups plan to pitch in another $700 million in advertising aimed at attacking Trump and lifting up Biden, according to the campaign.
Still, exit polls showed major areas of concern for the president. In California, independent voters in the state Senate jungle primary voiced greater approval for Trump’s performance as president (43%) compared to Biden’s (35%). In North Carolina, the Republican Party opted to allow independent voters to take part in the GOP primary, and Trump outperformed former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley among the swing demographic.
Furthermore, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who dropped his primary challenge to Biden last year, announced that he had qualified to appear as an Independent on the November ballot in Nevada. Now Kennedy could pull votes from both Biden and Trump, but Biden’s electoral map all but relies on a win in Nevada to secure a second term in office. Kennedy supporters are also seeking to gather signatures to qualify him in other swing states, including Arizona and Georgia.
Independent candidate Cornel West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein, both progressives, could additionally eat into Biden’s coalition come November, though neither has a realistic chance of a winning White House bid of their own.
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Tuesday’s fallout, especially Haley’s decision to finally suspend her campaign, all but solidifies the Biden-Trump rematch.
Though polls dating back to 2022 routinely show most voters wishing neither Biden nor Trump would run again in 2024, both men have been ostensibly treating this as a two-horse race since announcing their candidacies.
Both Biden and Trump have sought to paint each other as threats to democracy, a line of attack that both candidates are using to sway voters to their sides before the general election. In November 2022, Trump announced his campaign by attacking Biden and Democrats for the “decline of America.”
“Under Biden and the radical Democrats, America has been mocked, derided, and brought to its knees perhaps like never before. But we are here tonight to declare that it does not have to be this way. It does not have to be this way,” he stated. “The decline of America is being forced upon us by Biden and the radical left lunatics running our government right into the ground. This decline is not a fate we must accept.”
“When I ran for president four years ago, I said, ‘We’re in a battle for the soul of America,’ and we still are,” Biden himself said in his April 2023 announcement video. “Every generation of Americans will face the moment when they have to defend democracy. Stand up for our personal freedom. Stand up for the right to vote and our civil rights, and this is our moment.”
Fast forward to the present, and both Biden and Trump reacted to Super Tuesday with eerily similar language.
“Are we going to keep moving forward, or will we allow Donald Trump to drag us backwards into the chaos, division, and darkness that defined his term in office?” the president posed to voters in his post-Tuesday statement.
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“We’ve watched our country take a great beating over the last three years,” Trump said at his victory party in Florida.
Neither candidate is likely to move too far off that script between now and Nov. 5.