Biden officially announced his re-election campaign last week. Currently, three candidates are running for president out of the Democratic party. Aside from Biden, Democratic candidates include Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. It’s unlikely that either candidate will win the Democratic nomination over Biden. However, there is one primary contestant who was likely to receive it, had Biden not elected to launch his own campaign.
Marianne Williamson announced her campaign for the 2024 election before either one of her Democratic competitors, despite indication that Biden would be running for re-election. Williamson has been steadily campaigning on TikTok since she announced. This is a controversial decision, especially considering the recent controversy about the platform in the news and the fact that neither of her competitors even owns a public TikTok account. However, among the three, Williamson appears to be the most dedicated to connecting and advertising to younger voters.
Younger voters seem to be the demographic that Williamson is targeting, and it’s not hard to see why. Most of her concerns and stances align with most young voters. This is the same group of people Biden disappointed with his decision to approve the Willow project, despite protests that included more than 1 million letters received by the White House and over 3 million signatures on a change.org petition which followed a fierce TikTok-based social campaign. All this indicates that younger voters, especially Gen Z, are more likely to put their weight behind Williamson in the primary. But, this may prove to be an all-or-nothing kind of situation.
As voters realized during the 2016 election, sometimes it’s best to go with a lesser of two evils. If Democratic voters are split between two choices and neither candidate can garner the kind of national support necessary in 2020, then the numbers might not be able to match up to the dedicated followers of the Trump campaign. While there is no guarantee as of yet that he will be running for the Republican party, Trump does still hold a vocal following of people eager to return him to office.
The bottom line is this: Trump holds a dedicated following and somewhat widespread Republican support. With Biden and Williamson competing for the Democratic vote, there is a substantial risk of a 2016 repeat. Democratic voters will need to agree on and throw their support behind a single candidate if they hope to win the coming election.
