Although it may often seem as if the 2024 presidential election has been running since the race ended, history will be made on Monday, January 15, with the casting of the first votes in the process. This is it, this is not a drill. If you would like to set your alarm ladies and gentlemen, events open officially at 1am Glasgow time.
That is when registered Republican voters in Iowa will meet to choose who they want to be the next president. In the grand scheme of things, the Iowa caucuses are hardly the be all and end all for hopefuls. The Iowa vote is responsible for a tiny fraction of the delegates to the Republican convention in Milwaukee in July that will choose the official candidate.
Nor is Iowa a reliable indicator when it comes to selecting the eventual Republican nominee. In the seven contested races since 1980, only two of the winners went on to get the nomination. In 2016, for example, Ted Cruz defeated Donald Trump by 28% to 24%.
While Iowa is in the foothills of the mountain that lies ahead for candidates, it matters. For many voters it is the point when they start paying attention. For candidates it is a useful indicator of how they are doing. A supposed front runner who lost heavily in Iowa could see donors fall away.
A surprise victor could attract those same donors. And then there’s the big mo, momentum, which every candidate needs to fuel them through the months of caucuses and primaries to come.
C. Latest polls put him on 50%, with Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley on 18.4% and 15.7% respectively. Yet the notoriously superstitious former president, who is said to start every meal by throwing salt over his shoulder, is taking nothing for granted. At one recent rally he told supporters to “pretend we are one point down” rather than dozens ahead.
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Being crowned winner this early in the process doesn’t sit well with Trump’s latest version of himself as underdog and martyr. He’s the 91:4 candidate remember, the one fighting 91 charges in four criminal cases, and he’s doing it to “save America” from Democrat tyranny.
Joe Biden is also out to save democracy, this time from Trumpian tyranny. “Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time,” he said in a speech last week. Trump dismissed this as “pathetic fearmongering” on Biden’s part, as opposed to his talk of migrants “poisoning the blood” of Americans.
You could say the fight is getting dirty already, but when has it ever been a clean contest between these two? It is America’s misfortune, and the world’s in general, to be facing such a high-stakes election with two candidates known for their lows.
Donald Trump (Image: free)
Trump’s lows are so numerous and well-documented anything new he says has to be outrageous to cut through. Hence the talk of blood and “vermin”. Biden’s lows are there for all to see in the opinion polls. At the end of 2023, a Gallup poll put his approval rating at 39% - that’s bottom of the league of the last seven commanders-in-chief at this point in their presidencies.
From a distance, Biden’s “problem” is through the looking-glass stuff. America’s economy is surging ahead. Inflation is down slightly on the year at 3.1%, way down from the 7% of 2021, with the latest figures due on Thursday. Compared to others Americans have little to complain about economically. Yet what is keeping them awake at night is the same in Des Moines as in Dundee - the rising cost of living. Following that is another, increasingly important concern.
Biden is not getting a bounce from the economy because there is another factor weighing him down. It’s the same elephant it has always been, the one sitting on all of us, and it is the one thing he can do nothing about - his age. There are four years between Trump and 81-year-old Biden - the same as a presidential term. Yet those four years could deny Biden a second term and hand victory to Trump.
Americans are not just asking themselves the usual question of whether they feel better off now than they did four years ago. They are wondering about the next four years with a president who will be 82 on inauguration day.
At this moment it is too close to call between the two men. What worries some Democrats is the effect on Biden when the pressure of the campaign proper begins to mount. More concerning still, Trump is starting to pull ahead in several swing states, and the voters drifting towards him - chief among them young people - are must-haves for Biden if he is to win again.
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What to do about it, though? Some in the party are hoping Obama will save the day, bring the doubters back into the fold. Others are looking further back, to LBJ and his resignation speech of March 31, 1968 (on YouTube, natch). Is it possible Biden could go the LBJ way and quit just months from the election?
It is a neat idea but it arrives trailing many doubts and differences. The most glaring difference between LBJ then and Biden now is that Johnson was neck-deep in the Vietnam war. America was a powderkeg ready to blow. Despite it all, including the January 6 attack on the Capitol, America is a long way from 1968. It should be remembered, too, that LBJ standing down made that terrible year worse than anyone could have imagined.
We should recall, too, that there were obvious candidates to replace LBJ, chief among them Robert F Kennedy. Who is waiting in the Democrat wings now - Kamala Harris? The party has been assuming the ostrich position for so long it may be too late to change candidates.
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In election terms Iowa means it is morning again in America. There are many hours and miles to go till the next president is named. For once, that could be a positive. The times will test Biden but they will do the same to Trump, and they will focus voters’ minds on what they want. So remember to set that alarm.
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