Illustrative image.

President Joe Biden and former president Donald Trump won their respective party primaries – Democratic and Republican – on Tuesday rather overwhelmingly and easily. Trump’s only rival Nikki Haley managed to win in tiny Vermont and Democrat challenger from Samoa, Jason Palmer. But these are token victories for the challengers.

So, in the November presidential election Biden and Trump will be facing each other, with a slight role reversal. In 2020 November, Biden was the challenger and Trump was the incumbent president. This time round, Biden is the incumbent and Trump the challenger. Does the role reversal give Trump the advantage this November that Biden had four years ago? Political pundits are not willing to predict the outcome. The verdict about the Tuesday outcome is that Biden won the Democratic primaries though many Democrats were not enthused about him. They feel that he is too old for the job. Many are not happy with him with his stance about the war in Gaza. The number of Democrat voters who are not committed to his candidacy remains big, and it is quite likely that they will keep away from voting in November. This is likely to give Trump a slight advantage.

And it looks like that though Trump has swept through the 15 states on Tuesday, and he has garnered 70 per cent of the Republican primaries’ vote, the path to the White House for a second term does not look easy or even certain.

Though Haley has been decisively outplayed, she still commands 30 per cent of the Republican vote, the old conservatives of the party, the suburbanites and the college-educated segment, and Trump would need their vote to cross the finishing line as it were in November. Ending her presidential campaign, Haley said that Trump needs the 30 per cent of Republican voters who stood with her, and that he has to reach out to them.

It is a clear indication that though she has lost, she still has significant political stakes in the presidential race. She has kept her option of endorsing his candidacy open. It is usually the case that those who lose in the primaries end up expressing support for the winning candidate. Haley has also said that she does not feel bound by the pledge made mandatory by the Republican National Committee that all party members must support the official presidential nominee of the party.

Interestingly, both Biden and Trump face uncertainty in terms of support for their respective party members. It is also anticipated that this could be the most negative presidential campaign ever, and Trump would be unsparing in his personal attacks on Biden and Biden on his part is going to retaliate.

In a speech in Florida on Tuesday after the primaries, Trump said, “We’re a third world country at our borders, and we’re a third world country at our election.” He is of course attacking Biden’s immigration policy, and he is expressing his distrust of the American electoral process because he is unable to accept the fact that he had lost the 2020 election. 

The person who deserves the most pity is the American voter because he or she is forced to vote for a person who she or he does not fully support. It is indeed an unhappy situation. There is usually enthusiasm in either of the camps for the candidate. There is none this time round as there was for Barack Obama in 2008 because he was a new face and he spoke a new language of hope for many Americans. Biden is talking about American democracy and America values, and Trump about a gut-level American nationalism and glory. But it does not sound reassuring enough.