A Potential 2020 General Election Rematch
In coming weeks, the Supreme Court is expected to decide whether or not states can ban former President Trump from the ballot for his role in leading the January 6th insurrection in the United States Capitol. According to the New York Times, formal challenges to Donald Trump’s presidency have been filed in at least 35 states. The ballot challenges focus on whether Trump’s efforts to overturn his defeat in the 2020 election make him ineligible to hold the presidency again based on the rarely used Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, enacted after the Civil War that disqualifies current and former government officials who engaged in “insurrection or rebellion” from holding office. It is unclear when the Supreme Court will issue a ruling.
Most of Trump’s Republican challengers ended their campaigns before a single vote was cast, and he has been the frontrunner in the Republican primary elections. Presidential candidate Nikki Haley is his closest opponent for the ticket, but she currently has a slim chance of beating Trump.
President Joe Biden will likely be the 2024 Democratic nominee for president, but he is not running unopposed. Dean Phillips, a Representative from Minnesota and moderate Democrat, launched a long-shot presidential bid against Biden. Phillips argues that Biden’s age and low approval ratings mean the party should nominate someone else. According to CNN Politics, Biden’s current approval rating is 39%.
Third-party and independent candidates include anti-vax activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nephew of former President JFK, who initially ran for a Democratic nomination before switching to independent, Jill Stein, who ran for president on the Green Party ticket in 2012 and 2016, and professor Cornel West who is known for his “progressive activism” and criticism of former President Obama.
Biden and Trump are currently dominating in the primaries, and according to CNN Politics, “a 2020 general election rematch [is] seemingly the most likely outcome.” Neither Trump nor Biden has locked up their party’s nomination.
