Opinion

United States: Towards 2024

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With a spectacular 59.4% of the vote, Ron DeSantis has delivered a resounding blow to the US electoral table. The Republican governor of Florida has not only won re-election in a key state, but has also made a dazzling emergence in the race for the presidential nomination for the 2024 elections.
 
DeSantis, a battering ram against the policies of the woke movement in his country, has managed to become the hope of many Republicans who see in him the option of returning to the White House in two years' time with an equally conservative profile, but perhaps less polarising than that of Trump.

The latter signed up to a disappointing leadership of his party in the last midterm elections, given that the predicted Democratic disaster did not finally happen. As in so many aspects of life, and politics is no different, expectations are always crucial. The Republicans, who were poised for a night of wine and roses, stumbled to defeat in the Senate and won a slim victory in the House of Representatives. The mobilisation of the Democratic vote following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed abortion nationwide, goes some way to explaining this Democratic resurgence. However, this is not the only key to explaining why the Republicans have played such a disappointing role against Democrats led by an older, unpopular president, punished by a devastating inflation that impoverishes the average citizen. Rather, one should look for the reason in the fact that the Trump-backed candidates were at best eccentric. This is why decisive battles such as Arizona, New Hampshire or Pennsylvania were lost.
 
So Trump's chances after his as yet unacknowledged defeat in 2020 and this stumble in 2022 are reduced against DeSantis. But DeSantis is not the only name being bandied about. Former Vice-President Mike Pence, a favourite of evangelicals, Senator Marco Rubio, also from Florida, who ran in 2016, and former Secretary of State Pompeo could also play a role in the primaries.

And what about the Democratic party?

Biden has just turned 80, making him the oldest president in history, and his stumbles and confusions certainly do not help to dispel doubts about possible cognitive decline. Nevertheless, he has proven his electoral effectiveness in the face of Trumpism, which is why he should not be easily dismissed.
 

For her part, Kamala Harris has completely blurred in these two years as vice-president, which, although it is a more formal position in the US, could have allowed her to develop a greater public projection.
 
In this context, it is logical that Gavin Newsom, mayor of San Francisco between 2004 and 2011, and current governor of California since 2019, re-elected this year with an impressive victory, has begun to be talked about.

Other names that are still being bandied about are those of Transportation Secretary Buttigieg and Senator Warren, from the most progressive wing of the Democrats, which does not seem a good candidacy to put forward in such a polarised context as the current one.
 
Thus, the road to 2024 has only just begun and the two parties are far from clear on their electoral ticket. These upcoming elections will be particularly relevant, as the violent attack on the Capitol has made it inevitable that the degree of division and disrepute of institutions in the world's leading power will continue to grow. The rise of the most left-leaning sectors in both parties, which we have been witnessing for the past decade, must be halted, and 2024 could be a great opportunity to do so.