he debate, which will largely determine whether Trump can be re-elected, is shaped on the question of who the Democrats will confront him.





For now, Donald Trump is the focus of the US presidential election debates on November 3, 2020 . The debates, which will largely determine whether Trump can be re-elected, however, are shaped on the question of who the Democrats will confront him. The issue of who can prevent Trump, who is the oldest president in American history as of the time he took office for the second time, has been discussed with fervor. The confident and anti-Trump cynical smile on the face of the Democrats (often seen in the previous election) seems to have been replaced by a nervous wait this time.





First billionaire US president: Trump

Few people took this seriously when Donald Trump, born by a mother in Scotland and a father in a German family, announced his plan to become a US president candidate in 2015 as a billionaire businessman and TV star. In fact, speculation that Trump wanted to be the president of the USA was very old. In 1987, news appeared on the subject in newspapers, and Trump said at that time, "No, I am not a candidate, but I will win if I become a candidate." Trump, who later changed his mind, was a candidate for the Reform Party for the 2000 presidential election and then withdrew. He announced that he seriously considered candidacy for the 2004 elections and then gave up again. There were some attempts before the 2012 elections.





Therefore, let alone being the president of the US, it was unlikely that he was a candidate for the Republican Party for the 2016 elections. It was a serious surprise that 16 candidates were eliminated and the Republicans managed to become candidates. As a billionaire with no military or administrative experience, many people almost couldn't believe their eyes when he defeated Hillary Clinton and sat in the chair of the American presidency.





Donald Trump, who has never been on the agenda with scandals and sensational news during the first presidency period, has been preparing for the second term candidacy for a long time. In fact, as someone who presented the documents required to participate in the 2020 elections to the relevant authorities in January 2017, just after the day of his presidential oath, he is already sending a message to the Democratic Party: I will beat him anyway ”.





Although some circles claim that there will be serious opponents within the Republican Party against Trump, there is only one person who has announced his nomination outside Trump for now. He is former Massachusetts governor Bill Weld, who joined the 2016 elections as a candidate for the Vice President of the Liberian Party. Weld was anti-Trump enough to say that Donald Trump "insulted the American people and was too imbalanced to bear the responsibility of his high position" in the program he attended at CNN the week he announced his candidacy for president. But Weld is unlikely to be a candidate, as he has clashed with the Republicans' traditional attitudes on many issues such as the right to abortion, gay marriage and legalization of cannabis. Therefore, it is possible to say that Trump has no significant obstacle to his candidacy from the Republican Party.





Democrats race





The presidential election is more than a year, and the Democrats' struggle with which candidate to face Trump continues at full speed. For the eight-year presidency of Barack Obama and now leading the Democratic Party race, 22 candidate candidates, except Bernie Sanders, who competed for the Democratic Party candidacy in the 2016 Presidential elections, are not very well-known names for now.





However, it is possible to say that Democratic candidate candidates are spread over a wide range. A spiritual counselor and writer (Marianne Williamson), a mayor who declared gay (Pete Buttigieg), a Hindu ex-soldier (Tulsi Gabbard) who served in Iraq, a technology entrepreneur (Andrew Yang) and several states / There are governors, mayors and senators. It is possible to say that the most female candidate candidates (six people) are competing in the history of the USA.





These candidates have interesting election promises in many different fields. Some of these promises, some of which have been criticized as being quite populist and even utopian, are as follows: giving a thousand dollars a month to all US citizens aged 18-64 (Andrew Yang), regardless of the income level of all students, who currently have a total of $ 1.6 trillion. erasing (Bernie Sanders and Wayne Messam), resetting tuition fees at public universities (Elizabeth Warren), legalizing cannabis use (Beto O'Rourke), paying $ 100 billion to African-Americans within 10 years under the bondage compensation plan (Marianne Williamson), To give “baby bonds” to each baby which is worth a thousand dollars at birth and increases according to the family status in the following years (Cory Booker),





Democrats' anti-Trump opposition is in the foreground





The common feature of Democratic Party candidates is that they are all sharply anti-Trump. In the propaganda period of the previous election, Hillary Clinton also highlighted the criticism of Trump and tried to convince the American people how bad Trump was. This time, a similar situation is experienced. For example, Joe Biden, the most popular name for the Democratic Party nomination, has been running a similar strategy for now. In the first video that he announced his presidential claim, he tells more about how dangerous Trump is for America than what he would do if he was elected and says: “We are fighting for defending the spirit of this country. If we give Donald Trump eight years at the White House, he will change the character of this nation forever and radically. And I can't wait on the sidelines and watch this happen. The basic values ​​of this nation, our position in the world, our democracy - everything that makes America America are in danger. So today I am announcing my candidacy for the US presidency ”.





Time will tell whether these words, which resemble a declaration of war rather than a declaration of candidacy, and Trump's strategy of demonization in the eyes of the American people will work this time. Trump is not a stranger to this style anyway, and immediately revealed that he would respond in the same way. The statement made by Joe Biden from his Twitter account, which he used almost as a basic communication tool throughout his presidency, shows that he would be pleased that the election campaign process went on this level: “Welcome to the race, Sleepy Joe. I hope you have the intelligence to be successful in the first campaign period [among the Democrats] (which I have been skeptical about for a long time). Your fight will be very dirty. Because you are going to deal with people who have ideas that are really sick and demented. If you can, I'll meet you at the starting line! ”





It is understood from the increasing support of Trump in the 2020 elections that there will be no "easy bite". For example, according to a public opinion survey for the Washington Post dated July 1, public support for Trump's policies is at its highest level in the presidency. Trump's economic policies are by far the biggest support among these policies. This is followed by tax, foreign policy, immigration and health policies. However, in the same opinion poll, Trump appears to have lagged behind in the face of possible Democratic candidates. Among the Democratic candidate candidates, it is seen that Joe Biden has an advantageous position with 29 percent support, followed by Bernie Sanders with 23 percent.





Of course, there is a long time to elections. It is possible to say that the efforts of the Democrat Party to find the most suitable candidate will be a big competition in itself. The fact that Donald Trump is a Republican Party candidate is the most likely scenario if there is no serious unforeseen development such as scandal or crisis.





Considering that the change has been happening both in the world and in the USA in recent years, it is not possible to predict the results of 2020 US presidential elections clearly. But it is certain that there are moving days waiting for Trump and US politics. The results of the election are closely related to the whole world, as can be seen in the turmoil with Trump's policies after the 2016 elections.





[He completed his PhD studies in Political and International Studies at Warwick University in England. Oğuzhan Yanarışık is a faculty member of the Police Academy Security Sciences Institute]