US elections: Donald Trump against Joe Biden, a win-win duel?

Donald Trump's overwhelming victory. On Monday, January 15, the former US president won the first of the Republican primaries in Iowa, with 51% of the vote, well ahead of Ron DeSantis (21%) and Nikki Haley (19%), his only current rivals in the right. This reinforces the prospect of a rematch between Joe Biden and Donald Trump on November 5.

Donald Trump “is clearly the favorite of the other side,” Joe Biden reacted after the results in Iowa through his X account. “This election is you and me against the Trumpist extremists,” he added. Biden does not have any strong candidate in front of him for the future Democratic nomination. Despite his unpopularity, barring major surprise or a serious health problem that forces him to withdraw, the president of the United States is almost assured of the nomination of his party.

Biden, who has just entered the campaign, strengthened his narrative. In his first campaign speech on January 6, he accused his predecessor of wanting to “sacrifice American democracy” and using Nazi rhetoric. “He says that the blood of Americans is being poisoned, using exactly the same language as in Nazi Germany,” he declared, near Valley Forge (Pennsylvania), a historic site of the American War of Independence.

Biden had already raised the alarm on the first anniversary of the assault on the Capitol, and again in September 2022, when he accused Donald Trump and the most radical members of his party of taking the country backwards.

Fear of the figure of Trump

“Joe Biden is trying to capitalize on Donald Trump's troubles and the widespread fear of speeches about the end of democracy to mobilize his electoral base and beyond,” analyzes Lauric Henneton, professor at the University of Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en -Yvelines (UVSQ). “It's just that the argument of fear of Trump no longer works as it could have worked in 2020,” the professor added.

During the 2020 elections, Joe Biden presented himself as a moderate, with the experience and empathy necessary to make the turbulent Donald Trump forget. These anti-Trump arguments were reused in the 2022 midterm elections. A strategy that worked, as the Biden camp derailed predictions of a crushing defeat, consolidating its majority in the Senate. Although he emerged stronger from this electoral sequence, that is no longer the case today, hence Biden's interest in turning the November 5 vote into a referendum against Donald Trump.

“Biden stirs up 'scarecrow' Trump, or 'bogeyman' Trump, to make the argument of fear and rejection work,” Henneton said. “This demand to vote against the other is not specifically American (we saw it in the second rounds of the French presidential elections), but it is very widespread in the United States. People do not vote (for a candidate) Republican because they love Republicans, but because she is convinced that Democrats do not know how to manage the economy, for example.

In the event of another Biden-Trump duel, he would win, according to the FiveThirtyEight portal, the latter, which offers a summary of national polls. But since this lead only represents a few points (two points dated January 16), Biden could still win.

Nikki Haley, a threat to Joe Biden

On the other hand, excluding the former president from the ballot – as the states of Maine and Colorado did, declaring him ineligible for his actions on January 6, 2021 – would not be favorable for the Democrat, who has no real desire to face the rival. Donald Trump's most serious, Nikki Haley. In fact, in the event of a Biden-Haley duel, polls show that she would lead the Democratic president by an even clearer margin (eight points as of January 16) than in the case of a Biden-Trump duel.

Although the die is not yet cast on the Republican side, Nikki Haley has solid political experience. She was initially the representative of South Carolina (2005-2011), then governor of that same state for six years and finally United States ambassador to the UN for almost two years under the Trump Presidency.

“Joe Biden fears a Nikki Haley candidacy more than one of Donald Trump, because Halley would be a much more difficult candidate to discredit,” says political scientist Marie-Christine Bonzom, a US specialist and former BBC correspondent in Washington. “Nikki Haley is much less controversial. In a debate, she would beat Biden or Trump by a long shot.”

In an increasingly conservative Republican Party, Nikki Haley is a woman who also relies on her Sikh origins. “She represents a possible alternative and a centrist candidacy that is missing in the current panorama.”

Age is also a major factor in this election, with Joe Biden challenging to be the first octogenarian to be re-elected president of the United States. At 51 and 45 years old respectively, Nikki Haley and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have the argument of youth against an 81-year-old president who stumbles or forgets what he says when he speaks in public. All the more reason for Joe Biden to prefer facing a 77-year-old Donald Trump.

“Joe Biden may be old, but he is not senile,” says Jérôme Viala-Gaudefroy, professor at Sciences-Po Saint-Germain-en-Laye and expert on the United States. “It is true that physically he is very weak and is not a reference of strength in the eyes of the electorate. These weaknesses were already mentioned during the midterm elections and, however, he managed to refute the polls.”

The 'mutual necessity' between Trump and Biden

If Donald Trump is Joe Biden's favorite Republican candidate, the opposite is also true. There is no longer any doubt about the interdependence between the two main candidates of the declining parties.

According to a recent Gallup poll, in 2023, 27% of Americans identified as Democrats, the lowest level since the institute began surveying Americans in 1988. And 27% of Americans identified as Republicans. These numbers are well below the 43% of respondents who identified as independent, matching the 2014 record for both major political parties.

Everyone seeks, therefore, to win votes from independents. “Donald Trump is absolutely unpredictable and that can scare away independents and undecided voters,” says Jérôme Viala Gaudefroy. “In the case of a Trump-Biden matchup, Trump can only win if there is low turnout on the Democratic side.”

“The vast majority of the American people do not like either of them,” notes Marie-Christine Bonzom. “That happens in every election. Voters say, 'I vote for the lesser of two evils.' Therefore, the two men need each other to maintain their existence on the American political and electoral scene, because they believe that they are the better repellent to each other.”

Article adapted from its original French version