Trump has a solid lead among Republican candidates
Despite several criminal cases and 91 indictments against him, Donald Trump remains the frontrunner in the election race among Republican candidates. However, according to polls, Americans would not want a repeat of the Biden vs. Trump duel in the fall of 2024.
During the 2016 campaign, Donald Trump said, “I can stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody. And I won’t lose voters.”
I have the most loyal supporters, Trump said at the time. And he ended up winning the election.
In 2023, the former U.S. president is back in the media spotlight, declaring his intention to return to the White House with a victory next fall, despite the more than 90 charges he faces in four criminal cases.
The former president insists he is innocent and accuses the press of a “witch hunt.”
“A guilty verdict or even just an indictment would likely hurt him more than help him in the election. But in the primary election process, in the nominating process, it clearly helps him. It’s a distraction from others,” believes Greg Swenson, chairman of Republicans Abroad.
Scott Lucas, a professor of American politics at the University of Birmingham, believes the bigger problem is that the claim that Trump is leading in the polls means the media is still buying his claims.
“In this case, the media is giving all the attention to Trump. If the press covered the candidates and issues equally, instead of treating it like a circus with Trump as the main star, then we could talk about a real democratic process. Right now, the media is actually helping Trump become the Republican presidential nominee,” Lucas told Euronews.
Despite the fact that news about Trump is constantly sidelining other Republican candidates, there is a general understanding that the former president can win the party primaries even without it: he has the highest ratings right now.
“As for the Republican candidates, at Wednesday night’s debate in Wisconsin, six of the eight confirmed that even if Trump is convicted, they would support his nomination. The political calculation of these candidates is this: if you say Trump shouldn’t hold the presidency, you lose any chance of getting Trump voters. Frankly, this has been a phenomenon for the Republican Party since Trump won the election in 2016,” Lucas notes.
At the same time, according to polls, less than a quarter of Americans want to see Joe Biden as president again.
A significant part of US citizens believe that Biden is too old to fulfill the duties of the President.
It is worth noting that the current head of state is only 3.5 years older than Donald Trump.
“75% of American voters do not want a repeat of the Trump vs. Biden standoff. 66% of Republicans don’t want him to run again, and an equal number of Democrats don’t want Biden to run. Many Republicans will say, ‘It’s time to go forward,'” Greg Swenson is convinced.
You may be interested: Trump believes the Biden administration is turning the U.S. into a banana republic