Why It Had to Be Biden

03/07/24 • 49 min

3 Listeners

With Super Tuesday behind us, this week is the end of one chapter of this campaign.

On the Republican side, former President Donald Trump’s only remaining challenger, Nikki Haley, is out of the race. And on the Democratic side, President Biden has so far secured more than 70 percent of the delegates he needs to secure the nomination.

The general election is here. And so too is the rematch we’ve been expecting, despite the fact that the majority of Americans continue to say they wish they had other options.

So for the next two episodes, we’re going to focus on a question we hear more than anything else: How exactly did we wind up with these two candidates? And why?

First up: We map Mr. Biden’s path to the 2024 election through conversations with Elaine Kamarck, a longtime member of the Democratic National Committee and the author of “Primary Politics: Everything You Need to Know about How America Nominates Its Presidential Candidates,” and Ron Klain, the president’s former White House chief of staff.

Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at [email protected]

With Super Tuesday behind us, this week is the end of one chapter of this campaign.

The general election is here. And so too is the rematch we’ve been expecting, despite the fact that the majority of Americans continue to say they wish they had other options.

So for the next two episodes, we’re going to focus on a question we hear more than anything else: How exactly did we wind up with these two candidates? And why?

Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at [email protected]

Previous Episode

Everything You Need to Know About Super Tuesday

It’s Super Tuesday. That means that people in 15 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia) and one territory (American Samoa) are going to the polls.

Usually, Super Tuesday is one of the biggest dates on the primary calendar — a day when a lot of people across the country make their voices heard.

This year is different. There’s no reason to believe that today’s results will alter the seemingly inevitable rematch between President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump. But there are noteworthy primaries in contests that could matter for control of the House and Senate and in important governor races.

Today: Amy Walter, the publisher and editor in chief of The Cook Political Report, previews the Super Tuesday races worth watching.

Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at [email protected]

Next Episode

Why It Had to Be Trump

On Tuesday night, Donald J. Trump won another four nominating contests and officially became the presumptive Republican nominee. That’s despite the criminal charges, the judgments made against him in defamation and sexual abuse cases, the hundreds of millions of dollars in legal penalties and the continued fallout from the events of Jan. 6, 2021.

Considering all of that, we want to ask Republicans the same questions we posed to Democrats last week — and to answer them more directly than we have before:

How exactly did we end up with Donald Trump as the Republican nominee again? And why?

To answer these questions, we turn to two different branches of the Republican Party today.

First, we speak with Henry Barbour, who has been a member of the Republican National Committee since 2005, a consummate party insider. He supported Nikki Haley in the primary but now supports Mr. Trump. Then we speak with Vivek Ramaswamy, who ran against Mr. Trump for the nomination, but was most similar to the former president among the other candidates in terms of ideology and style. He now fully backs his one-time rival and embraces the MAGA philosophy he represents.

Do you have a question about the 2024 election? We want to hear from you. Fill out this form or email us a voice memo at [email protected]