(Simi Valley) The Republican candidates for the 2024 US presidential election began to face off on Wednesday during a new televised debate, without Donald Trump, big favorite in the primaries, who is once again trying to steal the spotlight.
The former president chose to snub this broadcast, an important step in the long road to the White House, because according to him of his very large lead in Republican opinion polls.
The septuagenarian is instead in Michigan, at the same time as the debate, to court the working-class electorate to whom his Democratic rival, President Joe Biden, had reached out on Tuesday.
On August 23, the day of the first debate bringing together eight candidates, Donald Trump had already played spoilsport by giving an interview on social networks, deliberately at the same time.
This Wednesday, six men and a woman are on the set of Fox Business in California, always with the same challenge: how to exist in the face of the former president, who sucks up all the political and media attention with his provocative statements and his legal disputes ?
DeSantis’ fall
PHOTO MIKE BLAKE, REUTERS
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis
Starting with the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, seen by some conservatives as the next generation of the Republican Party but whose rating has plummeted in opinion polls.
The forty-year-old, who stood out with his shocking positions on abortion, LGBT+ issues or immigration, is now more than 40 points behind Donald Trump, according to the poll aggregator RealClearPolitics.
The other candidates for the Republican nomination – former UN ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former vice-president Mike Pence – are all peaking around 4 or 5%.
This is the paradox: four months before the first primaries, Donald Trump, criminally charged four times, continues to crush all competition, still benefiting from massive support from his tide of supporters in red caps.
Most of his Republican rivals are holding back their attacks against the former president, for fear of offending this base.
Trump-Biden duel in Michigan
PHOTO MATTHEW HATCHER, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Former US President Donald Trump
The Republican billionaire says he is already planning a possible remake of the 2020 election – devoting the vast majority of his attacks to Joe Biden, the octogenarian president candidate for re-election in November 2024.
The Democratic leader grilled the priority by showing himself, arm in arm with union leaders Tuesday in Michigan, to support a picket of auto workers.
“Joe Biden claims to be the most pro-union president in history. It’s absurd,” Donald Trump shouted Wednesday evening from a factory manufacturing spare parts in the greater suburbs of Detroit.
The Republican dwelled at length on the environmental policy of his successor, who promises to reindustrialize this former bastion of the automobile thanks to the development of electric cars.
Michigan, bordering Canada, created a surprise by electing Donald Trump in 2016 against Hillary Clinton. It will be one of the most contested states in the 2024 presidential election.