Noah Walters
Students and staff at the University of Mississippi are gearing up to vote in the 2024 presidential primary elections. The Democratic and Republican primaries will be held in Mississippi on Tuesday, March 12.
Both primaries will award 40 delegates to the winning candidate in their respective contests, a stepping stone on the path to accruing enough delegates to secure their party’s nomination. Primary elections will also be held in Washington, Georgia and Hawaii on the same day.
After Super Tuesday’s primary elections, incumbent Joe Biden has accumulated 1,497 of the 1,968 required delegates for the Democratic nomination. With the exception of American Samoa, Biden has won every Democratic primary contest so far, eclipsing challengers like Marianne Williamson and Dean Phillips, the latter of whom ended his campaign on Wednesday, March 6.
While voters in other states may have had the choice of other Democratic candidates, requirements specific to the Mississippi Democratic primary have rendered Biden the only qualifying candidate and thus the presumptive winner.
To sophomore public policy leadership major and Louisiana native Wes Templet, Biden’s record is one of achievement.
“Biden touches on issues that affect the majority of Americans, regardless of age, gender or race,” Templet said. “Whether it’s student loans, rebuilding infrastructure or employment levels, Biden has shown he can deliver for the American people, for all of the American people.”
Sophomore finance major and Mississippian Musa Thomas is a member of Ole Miss College Republicans.
Thomas, who supports Trump, was sure of his primary vote even before former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley dropped out of the race on Wednesday, March 6, after winning only the Vermont and District of Columbia primaries.
“I’m supporting Donald Trump for the primary, and I believe he will win it based on trends, polls and projections,” Thomas said.
So far, Trump has won 995 of the 1,215 delegates necessary for the nomination, 850 of which came from Super Tuesday’s Republican primary races.
In the midst of his 2024 campaign, the former president faces a number of legal cases in various states. Polls suggest that should the candidate face further indictments or convictions, support could drop among Republican and Republican-leaning voters.
Thomas does not believe that any of the legal probes into Trump will result in convictions, but sees a way forward for the campaign should they arise.
“I think none of these cases will hurt him. Cases like the (District Attorney) Fani Willis case in Fulton County or the civil fraud case relating to real estate in New York did not gain any traction,” Thomas said. “In those cases, I think his strategy should be to market it as a political attack — and not only a political attack, but something that can happen to the everyday American.”
Austin Smith, a freshman journalism and art history major from Hattiesburg, Miss., was hoping to vote for Haley in the primary and was disappointed when she dropped out.
“I supported Nikki because I am a very traditional person with my views and politics,” Smith said. “She was more liberal about the fact that she wanted social changes but she still had that conservative view on economics, which I really do value.”
Although Smith had high hopes at the beginning of primary season, he said those hopes slowly waned.
“Once I saw the results for other states like New Hampshire I kind of lost hope, but I hope she doesn’t endorse Trump and leans out of politics until 2028,” Smith said.
Smith said he will be supporting Biden in the general election.
Both Trump and Biden would be the oldest presidents to ever be inaugurated should they win the general election. Despite Biden’s primary performance thus far, junior risk management and insurance major and Missouri native Cannon Hearne was quick to express discomfort with Biden’s age.
“I think Biden’s age is concerning,” Hearne said. “I think age affects people in different ways. So, if how he appears in the media is falling off of his bike, tripping, stuttering on his words and mumbling, I think it’s a bad look for us. I feel like you want the person in charge to, even if they can’t look physically strong, appear mentally strong, and it seems he’s lacking both traits.”
Biden is 81, making him the oldest sitting president ever. Hearne’s worries about Biden’s age are shared by a majority of voters in some recent national polls, who are also concerned with Trump’s age. Trump is 77.
Templet, who is also an elections coordinator for UM College Democrats, disagreed with the concerns about Biden’s age and expressed support for Biden in the general election.
“While I am sure many Americans would love a younger leader, Biden has been able to keep his push forward to better the country and help his people. Trump is also only three years younger than Biden,” Templet said. “Biden will almost definitely be the nominee. Personally, he will have my support as he has led powerfully over the past four years, and he has a better shot of winning the general election than any of his opponents.”
Though Biden’s age concerns him, Hearne believes that at this point in the race, Democrats will not select another nominee.
“I don’t really believe the Democratic Party is going to put up another candidate with Biden in office. The history of the sitting president getting re-elected is pretty high,” Hearne said.
Senior pharmaceutical sciences major and President of the Muslim Student Association Khalil Abualya, who grew up in Palestine, concurred with Hearne’s assessment of Biden’s age, citing generational bias.
“We can’t have people that are ages 60 and up making hard decisions for us when the majority of Americans are under those ages,” Abualya said. “In my opinion, it’s a huge problem, because you can’t expect somebody that’s in their 60s to have your best interests at heart.”
But for Abualya, there is a different issue with Biden that stands above all else for him: the president’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
“I got word last week that all of my mom’s family that was living in Khan Younis had to evacuate to Rafah and, may God have mercy on them, they passed away,” Abualya said.
Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza has been the site of repeated bombings and other Israeli Defense Force operations, leaving the city devastated.
“The Biden administration is to blame for that,” Abualya said, referring to the United States’ lone veto against a Gaza cease-fire plan in the United Nations Security Council. “It is not an accurate representation of what America is, because Americans stand up for those who are suffering.”
Biden has received widespread criticism for his handling of the conflict. On Feb. 27, more than 101,000 electors in Michigan’s presidential primary cast their ballot for “uncommitted” in an effort organized by the state’s Muslim community to send a message to Biden. The movement spread, with multiple states doing the same during Super Tuesday.
Junior biochemistry and Arabic major and Vice President of the Muslim Student Association Adam Soltani of Washington, D.C., agreed with Abualya, pointing out that Biden could be putting the funds sent to support Israel toward benefitting Americans.
“We’ve put so much money into something that’s morally ambiguous at best,” Soltani said. “We could solve a lot of different issues. We could educate the workforce, the whole American population through college. We could get universal health care. We could do a lot of different projects that can help Americans. And so not only is this something that is morally concerning, it’s also something that’s not America first. So as the president of the United States, (Biden) should be held accountable in the primaries and in the general election.”
A divide in opinion developed among students on Trump’s age and mental acuity. Some, like Hearne, thought that Trump’s age did not show as much as Biden’s.
“I think it’s not really as much about age so much as how you display that,” Hearne said. “So, even if (Trump) is old, it seems like he’s mentally still got it together pretty well.”
Others, like Soltani, expressed doubts about not just Biden, but Trump as well.
“Age is definitely an issue in this election,” Soltani said. “I don’t think the American public has confidence in either of our two candidates and how mentally capable they are to handle the position.”
There is one thing many students seemed to agree on: Third party candidates are not a viable alternative.
“You want to put your vote in the candidate who you believe aligns with your beliefs, and often, that’s going to be nearly impossible,” Hearne said. “I think in this election, there’ll be a good amount of third party votes, but I think all that’s going to do is just take away from whatever base they lean closer to, so I don’t think they’ll ever have a real chance.”
Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science John Bruce agreed with Hearne’s assessment.
“There will be no viable third-party candidate in 2024. Because of how our elections are structured, voting for a third-party candidate is basically the same as not voting,” Bruce said.
This lack of viable third-party candidates can cause disillusionment among young voters about the primary and elections in general, many of whom feel that neither political party truly represents their best interests. However, Bruce encouraged college students to get involved with voting in order to build a habit of civic engagement.
“Voting is a habit. Developing and maintaining that habit is important for the individual and for democracy,” Bruce said. “When people feel like voting does not matter, we begin to feel like elections don’t matter and democracy doesn’t matter. Plus, as the old poster from my childhood said, ‘If you don’t vote on Tuesday, don’t complain on Wednesday.’”
