It’s a campaign that promises to be unique if not thrilling. The race for the White House will pit two men forced to deal with unprecedented handicaps for American candidates: a Donald Trump burdened with indictments facing an octogenarian Joe Biden.
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Certainly, the match announced for the presidential election on November 5 is the same as in 2020.
But former President Donald Trump has since been surrounded by legal troubles, charged in four criminal cases.
His third bid for the White House is punctuated by comings and goings in courtrooms, which he transforms into campaign platforms — an extraordinary situation in every way.
- Listen to the American political column with Professor Luc Laliberté via QUB :
“Marxist thugs”
At each of his meetings with the law, America observes the grand ball of the septuagenarian’s limousines leaving one of his luxurious residences. Then his arrival in court, his fist raised. And his audience, their faces closed.
A dizzying media attention that the billionaire was able to capture.
These are also many opportunities for the tempestuous septuagenarian to launch into great tirades, where he blames all his ills and those of the world on Joe Biden and “his band of Marxist thugs”.
This forum will have all the more resonance with the launch of his first criminal trial, on April 15, in New York.
AFP
“He likes to be able to play the role of the victim, which he can do by being in the courts,” analyzes Todd Belt, professor at George Washington University.
But this strategy comes at a cost: Donald Trump faces astronomical legal fees that he finances, in part, with funds from his campaign.
“This also prevents him from holding his large rallies with his supporters” across the country, he told AFP.
Since his duel with Joe Biden was made official, Donald Trump has only held one of his emblematic rallies, in Ohio.
In one of his favorite numbers, the showman mocks his rival’s age – although only four years separate them – and plays a haggard, distraught Joe Biden, unable to get off the stage. To the delight of his fans, with the famous red cap.
“Don clapped”
For Joe Biden, the campaign strategy is “tailor-made”: for an 81-year-old candidate, not necessarily very charismatic, who must manage his effort until November.
The Democrat is plowing the “swing states”, the decisive states: in a few weeks he was in Michigan; Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania…
A sustained pace that his campaign team contrasts with the rarer trips of Trump, described on X/Twitter as “Low Energy Don” or “Don raplapla”. A form of return to sender, since the billionaire gave his rival the nickname “Sleepy Joe”.
AFP
The president does not hold large gatherings, but meetings in small groups, partly away from journalists.
The Democrat, a hard-working speaker, whose entourage wants to avoid missteps, literally and figuratively, visits small businesses – at a barber with African-American clientele, in a Mexican restaurant.
He will chat “around the kitchen table” with middle-class families – far from journalists.
His campaign team then releases flattering videos.
“Human contact”
Joe Biden, seated in front of a hamburger and a milkshake, talks about student debt. Or he comforts a stuttering child, as he was in his youth.
The president avoids interviews with the national press, preferring short interviews with local or community media, and does not give many press conferences.
“Part of (Joe Biden’s) political success is his ability to establish human contact. And it’s different from Trump’s giant rallies,” assures Ben Wikler, who heads the Democratic Party in Wisconsin.
With its well-filled coffers, the Democrat’s team is increasing its television advertisements and relying on a targeted approach.
Will this strategy be the right one? If Joe Biden really wants to reassure voters about his age, he will have to get down into the media arena.
His team knows that “he needs to be on the field to shake off the image of a man not particularly young or vigorous,” says Professor Todd Belt. “They know they can’t keep hiding it.”
In recent weeks, the American president has started to regain ground in some polls.
