Our imperfect presidential primary system has given us two imperfect national party nominees for president. Former President Donald Trump won 14 of 15 primaries on Super Tuesday and a handful more this week. Nikki Haley won Vermont and District of Columbia and then suspended her campaign. Biden won easily everywhere.

These were the dullest and least exciting presidential primaries and caucuses in recent history. At the opening event, the Republican Iowa caucuses, Trump won all of Iowa’s 99 counties. Eight days later, in the New Hampshire Republican primary, Trump won easily there as well.

New Hampshire was key in the Republican race, because that state allows unaffiliated voters to vote in either the Republican or the Democratic presidential primary. The hope of anti-Trumpers in New Hampshire was that a flood of unaffiliated voters would go into the Republican primary and vote against Trump.

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If that happened, according to Trump opponents, Trump could possibly also lose the early voting state of Michigan and then do poorly on Super Tuesday in more moderate states like California and Colorado.

But that faded away instantly when Trump won New Hampshire. It was clear from that point Trump was going to be the Republican Party nominee for president in 2024.

Adding to the certainty of the outcome in the 2024 Republican presidential primary were the public opinion polls. Prior to each primary or caucus, most of the polls showed Trump with an unshakable lead and destined to be the winner. We do not recall even one instance where a public opinion poll showed a close race coming up in the next Republican primary or caucuses.

Perhaps the best way to analyze the situation is to see Trump running for the nomination in 2024 as an incumbent president. Incumbent presidents have usually had an advantage in presidential primaries and caucuses and have easily walked to victory as Trump did in 2024.

Granted, Trump was not the incumbent, but he had been president in the White House just four years earlier. Prospective voters thus were familiar with him and had a pretty good idea of what they would be getting if he returned to the White House for another four years.

Another surprising thing was the consistency of the voting behavior across the nation in the early Republican primaries leading through Super Tuesday. In county after county, from one state primary to another, Donald Trump consistently received 60% to 80% of the vote and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis or Haley or both received 20 to 40% of the vote. Vermont was an exception.

There was little or no variance from this pattern. It was difficult to find counties that went 50% or more for DeSantis or Haley or both. Even in a varied state like Michigan, every county voted for Trump in the presidential primary.

So, across America, we can believe that’s at least 65% of Republicans for Donald Trump, and 30 % or so of Republicans are hesitant about Trump or looking for someone or something else. In the 2024 U.S. presidential election one of the questions is how those Republicans who voted against Trump in the Republican primaries will vote in the general election. We believe most will likely vote for Trump unless he runs into major legal problems.

The 2024 Republican presidential primaries show the extent to which Donald Trump, his ideas and his ways of doing things have taken control of the Republican Party throughout the country. The anti-Trump moderates in the party are in the minority virtually everywhere. Eisenhower, George H. W. Bush, John McCain, and Mitt Romney seem in the distant almost forgotten past – as a populist nationalism and new form of isolationism have come to the forefront.

Thus the 2024 Republican presidential primaries are over and the race for the White House begins now. Trump and his supporters know the outcome of the race will be determined by the results from eight to 10 battleground, or swing, states, many located in the upper midwest.

That is states such as Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, along with Nevada, Arizona and Georgia. While the rest of the country will be neglected from here to November, the campaign intensity in the battleground states will be intense.

The Democratic Party presidential primaries in 2024 were dull and boring but that was to be expected. Incumbent presidents have usually had an easy time of regaining their political party’s renomination. The election of 1980 was an exception for Democrats and 1992 an exception for Republicans.

President Biden was helped this time by the reluctance of any notable Democratic Party member to challenge him.

The Democratic Party helped to make things routine and orderly by banning presidential caucuses, which have disturbingly low rates of voter participation, and scheduling the first Democratic presidential primary in South Carolina, a state everyone knew would be an easy win for Biden.

Trump will seek to do what only one previous president has done. Grover Cleveland served for one term, was defeated, and then came back to win the White House for a second term. But that was a long time ago. Former President Teddy Roosevelt challenged his successor President Taft in 1912 but they essentially divided the Republican and Republican-leaning vote and Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected. The last rematch in a presidential election was in 1956 when Adlai Stevenson again ran and again lost to Dwight Eisenhower.

Trump, it should be noted, earned more than 10 million more votes in 2020 than he had won the 2016 (63 million in 2016 and then more than 74 million in 2020). He won 46.2 % in 2016 and 46.9% in 2020. Imagine if he wins an additional 10 million in 2024?

Incumbency is thought to be advantage. But it was not for Gerald Ford or Jimmy Carter or Trump after his first term. And, in many ways, Trump is almost as much of an incumbent at Biden.

We are facing an unusual race. Most Americans have reservations about both these aging candidates. Many voters would like more options and younger candidates.  

Biden won more than 7 million votes than Trump four years ago – but the Electoral College margin was much closer. A few thousand votes in a handful of states could have changed the outcome. And Biden must be more worried than Trump about third-party candidates like Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Jill Stein and Cornel West. They may have no chance of winning electoral votes yet they could do what Ralph Nader did in 2000 or Ross Perot did 1992 – and that is hurt their preferred party’s nominee. RFK Jr. is an especially confusing case. He was going to run as a Democrat but that didn’t work. He espouses many views Trump supporters like, but he has a name Democrats are nostalgic about. He wins surprising support in some polls, but experts believe that will wilt in the coming months.

Everyone at this point expects a close and probably bitter contest. There may well be major gaffes, “health events” and “judicial events” during the next seven months. We know that inflation, the debt, the border, abortion, drugs, crime,  Gaza, Ukraine, trade with China and NATO will be much debated. But there are always a few issues that emerge as surprises. Elon Musk has made clear he is not for Biden (he voted against Trump in 2016 and 2020) yet his biographer says Musk is wary of Trump because Trump reminds him of his bullying father. Most people are expecting Taylor Swift to back Biden for a second time. We can expect unaffiliateds and young voters will likely be the crucial swing voters. And we can comfortably assume Biden and Trump will not be coming to Colorado unless it is for fundraising.

Tom Cronin and Bob Loevy write about Colorado and national politics.