There are multiple factors why the political campaigns of both candidates begin to experience effects of tension among the electorate. Some anticipated, such as the impact of the trials against Donald Trump, and others unforeseen, such as the rising tide of university dissatisfaction with the conflict in the Middle East.
We go by parts and by candidates.
Trump's proclaimed early victory is not such. There were many of us who doubted that his campaign was unstoppable, that there was a dominant momentum among the conservative and evangelical sectors that guaranteed his victory at the polls in November 2024.
Warning signs and even alarm signs are beginning to appear in the Republican candidate's campaign house.
First, campaign fundraising has fallen. In March, Joe Biden raised, according to party sources, $155 million. Trump raised 74 million, according to his own campaign team.
Money is not a determining factor in winning a presidential election in the United States, but it plays a significant role among large donors and sponsors, who, for various reasons, perceive that their candidate has lost strength and momentum to achieve victory. Therefore, they stop investing. It is just a thermometer of a very complex, polarized, confrontational and highly irregular electoral atmosphere: criminal trials, various accusations, delicate issues at a social and citizen level. But this thermometer shows signs that the “giant of conservatism” could be losing sympathy.
Another delicate element for Trump is the widespread anti-abortion wave that Republicans from Arizona, Texas, Florida, New Mexico and other entities have promoted in pieces of legislation.
These local legislatures (Arizona and Texas) are doing you a disservice in passing strongly restrictive laws against abortion. Six weeks was the deadline for these new laws, which forced Trump a few days ago to declare that, if elected again, he would not propose a federal law against abortion.
The Republicans have already measured and realized the enormous error of having undermined the constitutional guarantee at the federal level to guarantee the free right to abort.
This issue, in addition to Trump's continued judicial missteps, may well cost him the election.
But on the Democratic side, don't think that everything is going perfectly. The Washington government's almost unrestricted support for Israel and its genocidal offensive against Gaza, with warlike exchanges against Iran, Syria and Iraq, are causing a serious tone of anti-democratic and anti-Biden discontent among young university students.
In recent days, the Universities of Columbia (New York), Yale (Connecticut) and New York University (NYU) itself experienced various acts of protest, demonstrations and rallies in support of Palestinians and rejection of the community of Jewish origin.
In Manhattan the police had to intervene and arrest young people in the middle of the protest; Columbia suspended its classes due to the call for the rally, but prevented access to a professor of Jewish origin; Several institutions asked for police help to remove camps that students had established since last Thursday.
Other universities have joined, such as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), among others.
Studies that analyze the electoral climate, the dominant topics of discussion and disagreement, have identified that among the young population, the widespread and almost absolute support of the United States for Israel has caused high levels of rejection that is expressed against President Biden .
The State Department and the White House itself have pressured and warned Benjamin Netanyahu of the impact that his decisions are having within American politics.
The most recent is the announced attack on Rafah, the last bastion of refuge for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians expelled from Gaza by bombings and attacks.
But Israel does not give in, it does not seem to have the slightest intention to do so. Last week she traded attacks with Iran in what points to a high-intensity regional conflict.
In the polls in the United States, Biden has rebounded, while Trump has dropped slightly. When the Republican was already ahead with four or even five points in some key states (several swings), today we have some minimal advantages for Biden – two points – even in those same entities.
There is still a lot of time left, the elections are in November, the party conventions are missing and, above all, the trials from which Trump seems not to be able to escape.
But in this race, the decision is still up in the air and will remain that way until November.
