The final hurdles for a rematch election between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump disappeared in the aftermath of Super Tuesday, setting up the first White House repeat battle since 1956.
Trump dominated Tuesday’s primaries, and his last GOP opponent, Nikki Haley, exited the race Wednesday morning. On the Democratic side, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) ended his quixotic campaign against Biden following a string of single-digit results.
The early end of the GOP primary leaves the field set with nine months to go, setting up a historic general election battle before voters will choose between the same two names they nominated four years ago.
The last time that happened was in 1952 and 1956, when Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower defeated Adlai Stevenson twice in a row. Trump is hoping to accomplish a feat last seen in 1892, when Grover Cleveland won a nonconsecutive second term in a rematch with Benjamin Harrison.
With the general election battle kicking off in earnest, strategists on both sides are expressing cautious optimism.
“I’m as worried as I was in 2020, and I am as hopeful as I was in 2020,” said Sasha Tirador, a Democratic strategist based in south Florida.
Republican strategist David Carney thinks Trump has the advantage — on one condition.
“It’s going to be a tough, competitive race, and nobody should take it for granted. We still have the Electoral College; you’ve got to get to 270,” Carney said. “If Trump is focused on Biden and talks about his dismal record, I think he’s in good shape.”
Despite polls that consistently show voters did not want a rematch, Trump flattened his competition and won more than 80% in some Super Tuesday states, while Biden approached 90% in most states and lost more support to “uncommitted” than to his opponents.
Phillips’s candidacy was long framed as a referendum on Biden, but he endorsed the president after a slate of underwhelming finishes and said his intent was always to defeat Trump.
“I ran for Congress in 2018 to resist Donald Trump, I was trapped in the Capitol in 2021 because of Donald Trump, and I ran for president in 2024 to resist Donald Trump again — because Americans were demanding an alternative, and democracy demands options,” Phillips wrote in a statement.
Tirador says Biden is well positioned in the race but still has work to do, particularly on honing his message and making sure it reaches voters who have busy lives and do not follow politics closely.
“He’s got a great record to run on,” she said. “My only concern is the communication. I don’t think that enough people know the great things that this administration has done.”
Tirador would like to see better communication in Spanish, for example, and says Democrats will have to dramatically alter their messaging from the 2020 campaign.
At that time, the biggest issue was Trump’s handling of the pandemic and Biden’s presentation as a steady hand with a pro-science approach.
“Now, you have someone who is letting voters know he will act as a dictator, someone who has said that a general should be executed for not being loyal to him,” Tirador said. “That’s a very different set of options that voters have before them in 2024.”
Carney, by contrast, says voters outside of Washington are worried primarily about key issues, and will vote accordingly based on Trump’s superior approach to the economy, immigration, and crime. He doesn’t think the electorate will be swayed by arguments about Jan. 6 and consequently hopes Democrats double down on that message.
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“Trump is talking about issues that voters care about,” he said. “The good old days are only like five years ago, pre-COVID. What’s the difference? Biden took over.”
While Haley did not endorse Trump upon leaving the race, Carney is not concerned, pointing out that all primary elections that don’t feature an incumbent have a split field that tends to unite for the general election.
