Election 2024 heats up in arctic Iowa
Big election activity unfolding for both parties by March 17
This photo of FL Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is seeking the GOP nomination for president, in Iowa is from May 2023. Robin Ospahl/Iowa Capital Dispatch.
By St. Patrick’s Day, more than half of the 50 states will have conducted GOP primaries or caucuses. Nearly half of the states will have conducted Democratic primaries or caucuses, even more for both parties if one considers the Pacific American territories.
Election 2024 will heat up in the next 10 days with the Iowa Republican Caucus on Monday and the New Hampshire primaries for both parties on Jan. 23. The GOP Iowa Caucus will come with sub-zero temperatures and wind chills.
This election continues to focus on the possible Biden vs. Trump rematch. All indications still show the American people don’t want it.
For the incumbent president, he is plagued by poor polling, questions about his physical and mental well-being, and party political observers questioning if he should step aside. Former President Barack Obama has urged Biden to bolster his campaign, fearing a Trump win. On Saturday, Axios reported that John Kerry would step away from his administration post as climate czar to help the Biden campaign. Those other Democratic options include California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former first lady Michelle Obama.
Trump is being plagued by lawfare, the courts and legal proceedings being used as a weapon to upend his effort to win a non-consecutive second term. These questions linger:
Is his campaign real or just a legal defense fund?
Can he run as a potential front runner and spend more money on defending himself, rather than running standard political ads?
With no third term possible, who will his vice president be?
Trump has multiple cases he confronts from New York City to Georgia to Washington D.C. Polling suggests that a conviction on any of them would harm him with voters. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether states can boot him from primary ballots because he engaged in an “insurrection” on Jan. 6. Trump has never been found guilty of insurrection, only in the minds of Trump-obsessed leftists and certain Republicans.
The key issues for election 2024 are not unusual. For the economy, headlines in recent weeks have all been rosy for President Biden: inflation down–except for the info surfacing Thursday–better-than-expected jobs numbers, and no recession. However, food prices rose from November 2022 to November 2023, despite all of that positive economic news. Living in Upstate New York, I have not sensed the positive economic mood. If the economy is that strong, conversations would reflect it. There’s nothing there.
After the economy, the southern border, or immigration, remains a significant issue for Americans. Additionally, with a second big foreign policy issue in Israel, Some Americans are concerned about foreign policy. Could the U.S. government have interests in three spots–Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan–and it generates an outcome favorable to the American public?
Meanwhile, an issue that is unpredictable should have everyone’s attention. Two weeks ago on CBS’ Face the Nation journalist round table, Catherine Herridge, the network’s national security reporter, predicted a potential high impact national security event.
Herridge based her prediction on the nation’s heightened threat level since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. She also bases it on the nation’s political division, believing a foreign enemy could exploit the situation.
Here are the candidates among the Republicans, Democrats, and Independents:
Republicans
Donald Trump–the former president elected in 2016, but lost to Joe Biden in 2020. He never conceded the results of the 2020 election. The real estate executive and owner of numerous hotels is a lightning rod of controversy, some by unforced error with personal insults, and some generated by his obsessed political enemies.
Ronald DeSantis–the Florida governor and former U.S. representative flipped statewide GOP numbers from a deficit of 200,000-300,000 when he took office to a more than 500,000 GOP advantage. Florida is no longer as a “purple state.”
Nikki Haley–former Gov. of South Carolina and the United Nation Ambassador during the Trump administration.
Vivek Ramaswamy–American entrepreneur.
Democrats
Joseph Biden–the incumbent president and former vice president was a long-time U.S. senator from Delaware. It has been a rocky first term with the Afghanistan withdrawal that evolved into a crisis, rising inflation that is supposedly declining, along with foreign policy issues with the Ukraine-Russia war, Israel’s war against Hamas, and China’s repeated threats against Taiwan.
Dean Phillips–a U.S. representative from Minnesota who believes Biden can’t defeat Trump a second time.
Cenk Uygur–progressive commentator from The Young Turks online news show.
Marianne Williamson–she started as a spiritual leader at the Church of Today, a Unity Church, in Warren, Michigan. She ran for president in 2020 and dropped out to support U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. declared as an Independent candidate in October in Philadelphia. AP photo/Matt Rourke
Independents
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.--the long-time Democrat connected to the famous Kennedy family is chairman of Children’s Health Defense. He gained a following during covid because of how the government responded. He dropped out of the Democratic party race and became an independent for 2024.
Jill Stein– running for the third time for the Green Party, previously in 2012 and 2016.
Cornel West–the former professor at Harvard University and professor emeritus at Princeton University.
The impact of Independent candidates depends on the number of states they qualify for, the ability of that candidate to gain traction with voters, which creates the potential mischief they create for the two parties.
Incumbent presidents who are challenged in their own party rarely win re-election. In 1992, Republican George H.W. Bush was challenged by Pat Buchanan. Bush lost to Clinton. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter was challenged by U.S. Sen. Ted Kennedy. Carter lost to Ronald Reagan.
This is the first election in a long time with countless unanswered questions that won’t be determined just by voters. The fun begins Monday evening in cold and snowy Iowa.