In a normal presidential election year in the United States, the primary season helps sort Democratic and Republican candidates, until only one of each remains.
But the 2024 primaries were different. Even before the first state vote was held, the outcome was clear: President Joe Biden was headed to a revenge against former President Donald Trump.
“This primary season has been particularly unusual,” said Tim Hagle, a political science professor at the University of Iowa.
“Part of the reason is that there seemed to be no doubt about who each party’s candidate would be. »
The presidential primary season draws to a close on Tuesday, with low-stakes voting in the final four states: Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico and South Dakota, as well as the District of Columbia. Only Guam and the Virgin Islands vote later.
But experts say the main lesson from this year’s presidential primaries isn’t who will ultimately quit. the nomination of each party. This is what each state-level vote revealed about the campaigns to come.
Trump’s ‘death grip’
The primary season began on January 15, when Iowa held its traditional first caucus in the country in the race for the Republican nomination.
The field of Republican candidates was initially broad. More than a dozen candidates have launched bids, ranging from Miami mayor Francois Suarez to Trump’s former vice president Mike Pence.
Some political observers speculated early on that Florida’s governor Ron DeSantisa rising conservative star, could challenge Trump for the Republican nomination.
But like the Iowa caucus When approached, the polls were clear: Trump maintained a seemingly insurmountable lead over all his challengers.
A December survey by Reuters and Ipsos, for example, found that 61 percent of Republicans supported Trump. His closest rivals, DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, mustered just 11 percent each.
As a result, even before the first primary vote, Republican candidates began to stall of the race. Shortly after the Iowa caucus, the field contracted even moreleaving only Trump and Haley in contention for the second contest of the primary calendar, in New Hampshire.
For Steffen Schmidt, a political science professor at Iowa State University, the lesson was that little could dent Trump’s standing among Republican voters.
Trump, after all, was confronted four indictments during the primary calendar. One of those indictments resulted in a trial that ended last month with convictions for 34 countslinked to a discreet payment made to an adult film star.
“We have learned that lawsuits, extramarital sex and ‘rewards’ cannot shake the support of candidates with a passionate base,” Schmidt told Al Jazeera.
Still, Schmidt added that it was “very strange” that a leading candidate like Trump could joke “about becoming a dictator” — and face little repercussions at the ballot box.
Some critics have pointed out that Haley’s attempts to challenge Trump exposed weaknesses in the former president’s re-election bid. For example, she beat Trump in two moderate-leaning areas, District of Colombia And Vermont.
And even after suspending her campaign in March, Haley continued to siphon votes from the Trump campaign. She received 21 percent of the vote in the Indiana primary and more than 16 percent in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
With November’s presidential race likely to be decided in a few key battleground states, these “zombie votes” for Haley’s defunct campaign have been widely interpreted as a signal of discontent with Trump.
Yet months after leaving the race, Haley announced last month that she would also vote for Trump — an indication that even the former president’s Republican critics were willing to support him.
“The Republican primaries taught us that Donald Trump has a death grip on his party,” said Richard F Bensel, a professor of government at Cornell University.
“No one in the party can effectively resist him, and even his most ardent opponents, like Nikki Haley, eventually capitulated as they pursued their own individual ambitions.”
Biden “difficult to replace”
On the Democratic side, the protest vote was even more striking.
Biden, the outgoing president, has faced backlash within his own party on issues including Israel’s war in Gaza And immigration. THE War in Gazain particular, sparked the formation of a protest movement centered on the primary season.
Beginning with the Michigan primary in February, organizers pushed Democratic voters to select options like “uncommitted” category on their ballots, rather than supporting Biden.
In Michigan, the “unengaged” movement received nearly 101,000 votes and two party delegates out of a total of 117. In another key state, WisconsinThe Democratic primary saw more than 47,800 voters vote for the “uneducated” category.
Critics have warned, as with Trump, that even a slight loss of support could have serious consequences for the November general election.
But the protest vote had relatively little effect on the outcome of the primaries themselves.
Biden was considered a front-runner: no incumbent president has ever lost in the modern primary system, and only once in U.S. history has an incumbent president-elect failed to get the nod from his left.
“The Democratic primaries revealed, once again, that an outgoing president is very difficult to replace, even if he is very unpopular,” Bensel, the Cornell professor, told Al Jazeera.
Bensel added: “In a sense, the Democratic Party is walking on what amounts to a sinking ship. »
A May poll by Reuters and Ipsos found that only 36% of Americans approved of Biden’s job performance.
Still, experts said no viable Democratic candidate has emerged to challenge the president as he seeks a second term.
Before the primaries even began, former environmental activist and conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr withdrew from the Democratic race to run as an independent.
That left little-known contenders like the self-help author Marianne Williamson and Rep. Dean Phillips to compete with Biden in the primaries.
“It was surprising that no Democrat considered a serious candidate was willing to challenge Biden,” said Hagle, the University of Iowa professor. “Maybe it didn’t seem as clear to Democrats that they would lose the 2024 general election, given that they believe they can beat Trump.”
Only “two aging and unpopular politicians” remain
Polls currently show Biden and Trump in a tight race for the November election. Both received the necessary number of delegates during the primary season to be their party’s nominee.
The latest Reuters and Ipsos poll reveals that the two candidates are “statistically tied if the presidential election took place today.” Biden held a slight lead, with 41% support to Trump’s 39%.
Ken Kollman, a political science professor at the University of Michigan, said the primaries underscored that — despite rumblings of discontent with both candidates — they are both here to stay.
“Even though many wanted otherwise, voters learned that these two unpopular, aging politicians are not going away and are headed for a showdown with massive consequences in November,” Kollman told Al Jazeera.
“Both have tenaciously maintained their leadership in their respective parties, and neither has escaped the divisions and lack of enthusiasm among part of the electorate within their party. »
Dennis J Goldford, professor of political science at Drake University, agrees.
He told Al Jazeera that both Democrats and Republicans came away from the primaries “with a candidate who does not excite the enthusiasm of the majority of each party.”
But he stressed that there is a limit to the ability to predict general election primaries. The number of voters who cast ballots in primaries and caucuses may be relatively small.
“Americans talk a lot about the right to vote, but we don’t really mean it. Nationally, we get maybe 60 percent turnout in presidential elections, 40 percent in midterm elections and 20 percent in primaries,” Goldford said.
He added that many voting trends have remained consistent so far in the presidential race.
“Republicans take voting more seriously than Democrats; older people take voting more seriously than younger people; and partisans take voting more seriously than independents,” Goldford explained.
But, he added, changes could come in traditional voting blocs. “The interesting question is whether supposed movement traditional Democratic constituencies – Blacks and Latinos – towards Trump is real.
Ultimately, many experts who spoke to Al Jazeera said the unusual primary season is a symptom of an unusual presidential race overall.
Never before has a former US president faced criminal charges – let alone during an election cycle. And the last time the presidential election was a rematch of the previous race was in 1956.
For Schmidt, election forecasts work like weather forecasts: “Forecasts depend on continuity and a certain replication of the past. »
But this year ? “We don’t have any of that.”
