The 47th U.S. presidential election begins with the Republican Party’s Iowa caucuses on the 15th (local time). As the ‘return match’ between US President Joe Biden (81) and former US President Donald Trump (77) becomes clearer, attention is being paid to whether candidates other than these can create a new wind.
Originally, there were more than 10 Republican candidates running for the 2024 presidential election, but the number has now been reduced to five.
They include former President Trump, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley (51), Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (45), businessman Vivek Lamas (38), and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson (73).
Former President Trump has an overwhelming lead. In a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, he is leading among Republican candidates with an approval rating of 61%. He is expected to implement stronger protectionist policies than during his first term in office, including a strong immigration policy, abolishing Obamacare, and imposing an additional 10% tariff on imported goods.
Former Ambassador Haley has emphasized that she is younger than President Biden or former President Trump and that she is the daughter of Indian immigrants. She is expanding her support base by building an image as a conservative who can solve gender and racial issues even within the Republican Party.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, the national approval rating was 12%, far below former President Trump, but in New Hampshire, the second primary region, he was closely behind former President Trump. In a poll released by CNN on the 9th, former Ambassador Haley’s approval rating was 32%, narrowing the gap with former President Trump (39%) to a single digit.
Governor DeSantis, who was evaluated as a ‘Republican sleeper’, appears to be having difficulty recently recovering his approval rating. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll, his approval rating was 11%, falling behind not only former President Trump but also former Ambassador Haley.
The ‘right-leaning’ policy he has consistently pursued as governor of Florida over the past four years has made him a star among far-right conservatives. In particular, during the COVID-19 pandemic, it received national attention by leading the way in abolishing quarantine measures such as opening face-to-face classes in public schools, abolishing vaccination certificates, and banning mandatory masks on the grounds that individual freedom and rights should not be violated.
Candidate Ramaswamy, an Indian-American and founder of a biotechnology company, attracted attention as a dark horse by showing a departure from traditional political moves. However, his approval rating has been declining since September of last year, and in a recent opinion poll, he only secured an approval rating of 7%. Some are raising the possibility that candidate Rama Swami may withdraw from the primary based on the fact that he has stopped spending on TV advertisements.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (61) and former Governor Hutchinson, who are representative anti-Trump figures in the Republican Party, appear to have failed to secure significant approval ratings. Former Governor Christie’s approval rating was only 2%, and former Governor Hutchinson’s approval rating was 0%. Accordingly, former Governor Chris announced his intention to withdraw from the primary at an event held in Windham, New Hampshire on the 10th.
Unlike the Republican Party, which is heated up in the primary election, the Democratic Party is quiet. In the Democratic Party, three people voted to run, including President Biden, Marian Williamson (71), a world-renowned author of self-improvement books, and Representative Dean Phillips (55).
Williamson was one of 25 candidates in the Democratic presidential primary four years ago. But he dropped out in January 2020 after twelve months of polls showed him averaging single-digit approval ratings.
Representative Phillips is a three-term moderate congressman from Minneapolis, and entered the primary in October last year, saying, “President Biden is too old to serve in office.”
They are evaluated as having insufficient weight to take away the approval rating of President Biden, who has an approval rating exceeding 70%.
Those who have announced their candidacy outside of the Democratic and Republican parties include independent lawyer Robert Kennedy Jr. (69), black social activist Cornel West (70), professor at Union Theological Seminary, and Green Party politician Jill Stein (73).
Kennedy, well known as the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, announced his candidacy as a Democratic candidate last April, but changed his strategy to run as an independent candidate in October due to low approval ratings. Afterwards, he recorded an approval rating of 22% in the Biden-Trump-Kennedy three-way race.
Professor West was a member of the Green Party, but decided to run as an independent candidate in October last year. Candidate Stein is a person who is evaluated as having dispersed the Democratic Party’s votes in the 2016 presidential election.
In a poll released by the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) last month, Kennedy secured an approval rating of 8%, Professor West secured an approval rating of 3%, and candidate Stein secured an approval rating of 2%. Experts are analyzing that if the approval rating of a candidate who declares to run in a third zone other than the Democratic or Republican Party increases, the votes will be distributed among the Democratic Party, not the Republican Party, as in 2016.
Source: Donga
Mark Jones is a world traveler and journalist for News Rebeat. With a curious mind and a love of adventure, Mark brings a unique perspective to the latest global events and provides in-depth and thought-provoking coverage of the world at large.