As the summer season ends and autumn draws ever nearer, the second Republican presidential primary debate is scheduled for the end of September. While the election of 2024 is political lightyears away, both major national political parties and media outlets have worked to generate a heightened fixation on the contest. In the Republican field, the former 45th President Donald Trump remains the clear frontrunner for the nomination. Even in the face of four criminal indictments, Trump has maintained a near 40-point lead over his nearest challenger, Ron Desantis. In the latest projections, he stands with 55% of primary voter’s support while DeSantis can only garner 14% (and the remainder of the crowded field of candidates with less than 10%). In the Democratic field, President Joe Biden enjoys the advantages of the incumbency and appears to be the party’s clear frontrunner. Biden faces only token opposition from Robert Kennedy Jr.. Kennedy, in second place, has been received generally more favorably by Republican-leaning voters than members of his own party.
In truth, over the past two decades the Democratic party has ceased to be the historic moderate party of the working class and today is a far-left, progressive party supported largely by the wealthy. Voters have taken notice, and in the same time period, the working class has shifted heavily towards the GOP with 64% of congressional districts considered below the average income nationally being held by Republicans. In 2020, many moderate voters voted for Biden in the hopes that he would govern as a centrist, being a force for healing and a figure that would help to reverse political divisions in the country.
Now, as Biden has spent the first 2 and a half years of his disastrous term governing from the far left, a CNN poll has found him to carry a paltry 39% approval rating into the fall of 2023. Additionally, 67% of Democrats would prefer a new candidate.
