President Joe Biden’s team is zeroing in on a White House rematch with Donald Trump a decade after their last campaign. The Democratic contenders believe that the former U.S. vice president can make inroads into Trump’s base voters while also attracting younger and minority voters that he may have lost to his predecessor. But with a crowded Republican field, some high-profile governors and senators considering a bid for the GOP nomination, and a possible Trump write-in victory in a New Hampshire race he didn’t contest, the path to deny him the presidency appears increasingly difficult.
On Wednesday, Biden’s aides shifted attention to the general elections in November, saying that Trump’s back-to-back wins in nominating contests put him on an almost certain path toward a general election contest with Biden. They said the upcoming elections will test whether Republicans can unite behind someone other than Trump or whether the president’s “election-denying, anti-freedom MAGA movement” has complete control of the party.
In a speech to donors in Virginia, Biden attacked Trump over his handling of border security and criticized him for his support for abortion rights, climate change denial, and opposition to gun control. His advisers say he’ll keep up his aggressive attack on Trump, who will likely lose his luster with swing voters when the campaign shifts gears in 2024.
The Democrats’ strategy for the primary race focuses on hammering Trump’s positions on issues that he may be vulnerable on with voters in the general election, including abortion, economic issues, and his record of supporting Israel. They’ll also hit him over his comments about immigrants, his erratic behavior in the White House, and the Capitol insurrection during a procedural vote to reauthorize funding for border wall construction.
While Trump has a firm grip on his party’s affluent and conservative South Carolina base along the coast and Charleston, the former U.N. ambassador is catching up to him in the more moderate Midlands around Greenville. In a new ad that dropped Wednesday, she portrayed herself as the most electable candidate in the Republican field, arguing that she has a more substantial chance of winning the state’s primary on 5 March than her remaining rivals do.
At a watch party on Tuesday night, Haley urged her supporters to keep fighting to defeat Trump and to prepare for the battle ahead in New Hampshire. She also criticized the Trump administration’s policies on national security and the economy, and she ridiculed Trump over his claim that the election was stolen from him. “You have seen what he does when he thinks people are against him,” she said. “He throws a fit.”
