Can Joe Biden get his head out of the water by winning Saturday in South Carolina? Bernie Sanders will he widen a substantial gap in a few days during "Super Tuesday"? And what about billionaire Michael Bloomberg, who will enter the race on Tuesday? Among the Democrats, many questions remain unanswered until the skimming is done as the primaries.
In the Republican camp, on the other hand, the suspense is much less unsustainable. Except cataclysm, Donald Trump will be the herald of the elephant party.
The American president is, however, also subject to this long-term process. Republican voters were already able to show their support for Trump during the Iowa caucuses on February 3 and in New Hampshire on February 11.
Given the inexistent stake - since the twentieth century, no incumbent president has been defeated during the primaries - one would expect that these primaries do not move the crowds. Both polls however surprised by the turnout figures, especially in New Hampshire.
Canceled polls
In this small state with 1.3 million inhabitants, Donald Trump obtained around 130,000 votes, twice as many as George W. Bush in 2004 and Barack Obama eight years ago, according to Politico. "These figures prove that Trump already manages to motivate his base," analysis for Le Parisien Jean-Éric Branaa, lecturer at Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas University and specialist in the United States. His troops are there and they show that they have every intention of carrying his re-election. A sign that the tenant of the White House does not take this lightly, he had held a meeting in New Hampshire just before the primary, accompanied by his vice-president Mike Pence.
Because organizing these primaries costs time and, above all, money, the Republicans have chosen to do without them in states where the organization of the vote is theirs. At the risk of frustrating and disappointing voters wishing to support Trump's candidacy. This was particularly the case in Nevada, where a party committee allocated to the president all of the 25 delegates at stake. "Others make the opposite choice and take precedence over the democratic game by considering that the opposition, as weak be it, must be heard and measured, ”explains Jean-Éric Branaa.
Bill Weld's insurmountable challenge
Since the withdrawal a few weeks ago of Joe Walsh, a former elected official from Illinois, this opposition to the president has been embodied by Bill Weld, 74 years old and francophile. Republican for decades, he is fiercely anti-Trump and has admitted that he would have voted without dismissing the impeachment of the president if he had sat in the Senate. Gary Johnson's running mate on behalf of the Libertarian Party in 2016, Weld wants to make heard a less harsh line, especially on immigration issues or on the right to abortion.
A challenge that is impossible for Bill Weld, for the simple reason that this line has almost completely disappeared within a party which has given body and soul to Trumpism. According to a Gallup poll released earlier this month, 94% of Republican voters approve of the President's actions. As weak as his results, Weld made his candidacy a matter of principle. "America deserves better," he keeps repeating since the announcement of his candidacy in April 2019.
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It remains to be seen how long he will be able to keep his ship afloat with pale gifts in front of the silver wall built by Trump. "It started off quite a bit last year and then it dried up," says Jean-Éric Branaa. But who do you want to finance it? Even the voters most inclined to trust him are not convinced. In Massachusetts, the state that will vote Tuesday and of which Bill Weld was governor in the 1990s, a poll for local radio WBUR credits Trump with 83% of the voting intentions.