US election 2024
Biden takes threshold for presidential candidacy
At 81, Joe Biden is the oldest US president of all time. photo
© Brynn Anderson/AP/dpa
The primaries in the USA decide who will run as the presidential candidate of the two parties. US President Biden has now broken a crucial mark with the Democrats.
Biden exceeded the required 1,968 delegate vote mark. In all likelihood he will run against Republican Donald Trump in the election on November 5th. The former US President is not yet mathematically certain of the necessary delegate votes. But here too, due to the lack of competition and given Trump’s victorious run in the primaries, there is no doubt that he will achieve the necessary votes and be chosen as the candidate by his party.
Official nomination only in the summer
Anyone who wants to become a presidential candidate in the United States must first prevail in internal party votes in the various states. The Democrats will then officially elect their candidate in Chicago in the summer.
Delegates typically must abide by the voting results in the primary election and cannot simply elect another candidate. The so-called superdelegates – Democratic party officials who are allowed to vote in the selection of the candidate and are not beholden to anyone – are unlikely to play a role this year. You cannot vote until the vote goes into a second round. This is considered impossible.
In the primary round, Democrats and Republicans voted in the states of Georgia, Mississippi and Washington, among others. A week earlier, Biden and Trump had made significant gains on the important election day “Super Tuesday”. Afterwards, Trump’s last remaining opponent, Republican Nikki Haley, dropped out.
In addition to Biden, the Democrats are also running the largely unknown author Marianne Williamson – the 71-year-old is polling at an average of just under four percent and has not yet won a single delegate vote. The entrepreneur Jason Palmer was surprisingly able to secure three delegate votes in the US territory of American Samoa, but, like Williamson, is not a serious competitor for Biden.
Biden and age
Biden is still not without controversy in his party. The 81-year-old is the oldest US president of all time. He would be 82 at the start of a second term in office and 86 at the end of his presidency. His old age is a major problem for him in the election campaign. Biden regularly gets confused during appearances, searches for words, mixes up numbers or mixes up people and places. A few weeks ago, his doctor confirmed that he was fully fit for his job. However, the Democrat’s health check listed a few ailments such as general “wear and tear” and a “stiff gait.”
The investigative report by a special investigator into the affair surrounding the discovery of secret government documents in Biden’s private rooms also painted an unfavorable picture of the president. Investigator Robert Hur wrote that Biden was a “well-meaning older man with a poor memory.” The White House sharply criticized the report and rejected the allegations made in it with regard to Biden’s age. But Trump is no longer young either. If the 77-year-old were to be re-elected again, at 78 years and seven months, he would be the oldest president to ever move into the White House.
Gaza war makes supporters angry
Biden has another problem: in primaries in the states of Michigan and Minnesota, for example, it became clear that some voters were punishing him for his support of Israel in the Gaza war. A significant number of party supporters refused to vote for Biden there and voted “undecided” in the primaries. The two votes were seen as an important test of sentiment because relatively large numbers of Muslims live in the two states.
But it is not only Muslims who are likely to have denied Biden their vote in Michigan. Younger, left-wing Democrats are also criticizing the president in view of the many civilian victims of the Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip. It is considered unlikely that this group of voters will switch to the Republicans in the presidential election for this reason alone. However, things could get tight for Biden if many voters vote for an independent third-party candidate or forego voting altogether.