Memo to the White House: 5 lessons for Biden from Trump's triumphs in Iowa, New Hampshire

FYI: To the White House.

Donald Trump's steamroller ride to the Republican presidential nomination, a race that is now all but settled with his double-digit victory in the New Hampshire primary Tuesday, has displayed his strengths and exposed his vulnerabilities.

Trump commands the Republican voters who determine the nomination, but faces resistance from the independent and moderate voters he'll need to prevail in the general election. His multiple criminal indictments haven't slowed his roll, but a conviction might.

And the issue of abortion, the lodestone of Democrats' electoral hopes, has unfolded in ways that suggest Trump might be able to finesse some of its political cost.

In the space of a few weeks, a string of rivals who had hoped to dislodge Trump has suspended their campaigns and fallen in line. He crushed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in Iowa, where DeSantis had anchored his efforts. He defeated former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley in New Hampshire, where she had focused her campaign, though she said the race was "far from over" and vowed to fight on.

For his part, President Joe Biden declared the general election underway. "It is now clear that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee," he said in a written statement Tuesday night. "And my message to the country is the stakes could not be higher."

Never before have the presumptive nominees in both major parties emerged so early.

Here are five lessons for the White House, some cautionary and some encouraging, from Trump's romp.

1. There are warning signs for Trump among independents

In New Hampshire, Trump thumped Haley by 3-1 among registered Republicans, 74%-25%, according to surveys of voters as they left polling places. But the Granite State allows unaligned voters to vote in whichever primary they choose, and Haley led Trump among them by 60%-38%.

They gave Haley a stronger second-place finish than statewide polls had signaled beforehand.

Trump won't need those voters to claim the nomination, but he will need them to regain the White House in November.

That could be a problem. Among voters in New Hampshire's GOP primary, 66% of independents and 19% of Republicans said they wouldn't vote for Trump in the general election. A stunning 96% of Haley supporters said they would be "dissatisfied" if the former president was the eventual nominee.

In Iowa, 20% of those who participated in the GOP caucuses said they wouldn't vote for Trump in November.

Those unhappy Republicans and independents present an opportunity for Biden.

Ideology is another divide. In Iowa, where only Republicans could participate in the caucuses, Trump won 55% of those who described themselves as conservatives. But he was backed by just 20% of moderates. In New Hampshire, he won 70% of conservatives and 25% of moderates.

2. Age is a weapon against Trump, but it's tricky

In the closing days of the primary, Haley escalated attacks on the former president's age and mental acuity.

He opened the door for her at a rally last week when he confused Haley, who served as his ambassador to the United Nations, with Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker who twice drove his impeachment.

Trump mentioned Haley's name four times in comments blaming her for alleged security failures and investigative malfeasance surrounding the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the Capitol. "Like Nikki Haley is in charge of security," he said. "We offered her 10,000 people, soldiers, national guards, whatever they want. They turned it down."

In an interview on Fox News the next day, Haley, said, "I'm not saying this is a Joe Biden situation, but I'm saying, are we really going to go and have two 80-year-olds running for president?" Trump is now 77; Biden is 81.

For Biden to level similar attacks on Trump would be a trickier matter than for Haley, who turned 52 on Monday. Both men have sometimes misspoken in ways that flummoxed their audiences and prompted explanations by aides afterwards, and Trump already has been hammering Biden as befuddled or worse.

3. Can Trump have it both ways on abortion?

It's no secret what issue the White House sees as most powerful for Democrats. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris held their first joint appearance of the campaign Tuesday with a rally in suburban Virginia spotlighting abortion rights.

"Let's remember, it was Donald Trump and his Supreme Court who ripped away the rights and freedoms of women in America," Biden told the crowd in Manassas, Virginia.

The high court's 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade, which had legalized abortion nationwide, has galvanized those who support legal access to abortion. Since then, legislatures in more than a dozen states have put in place near-bans on abortion while voters in a half-dozen states have used ballot measures to protect abortion access. The issue was a major factor in disappointing GOP results in the 2022 congressional midterm elections.

Trump has taken credit for making three appointments to the Supreme Court that led to the decision. "A miracle," he called it.

But he has also been distancing himself from the most stringent abortion restrictions. He has called DeSantis' decision to sign a ban in Florida at six weeks of pregnancy a "terrible mistake," saying many women don't even realize they're pregnant at that point. He has endorsed exceptions to abortion bans in cases of rape or incest or when the life of the mother is at risk. He hasn't spoken out in support of a federal abortion ban.

"You have to win elections," he said at a Fox News town hall in Iowa this month when pressed by a voter unhappy with his failure to support stronger limits. "Otherwise you're going to be back where you were, and you can't let that ever happen again. You've got to win elections."

In Iowa, he paid no apparent price among evangelical voters for that stance, even though some of his rivals did embrace tougher restrictions. Among voters who favored a nationwide ban on all or most abortions, 55% backed Trump, more than double the percentage who supported DeSantis.

In New Hampshire, Trump was backed by 79% of those who support a nationwide ban.

He was also backed by 44% of those who oppose it.

4. Indicted? So what? But a conviction could be different

So far Trump's four criminal indictments, including charges of trying to overturn a legitimate election and of mishandling some of the nation's most sensitive documents, have bolstered his standing among Republicans. He argues he's the victim of a politically motivated "witch hunt."

But the early contests indicate that a criminal conviction − the judgment of a jury − could change that.

In Iowa, almost a third of Republicans, 31%, said Trump would not be fit for the presidency if convicted of a crime, potentially a significant number in a close race. In New Hampshire, 42% of GOP primary voters said a conviction would make him unfit to be president.

That included 84% of those who voted for Haley and even 13% of those who voted for Trump.

5. Who needs to be on the ballot? Biden's easy win

What about the Democrats?

The White House studiously ignored the Democratic race in New Hampshire, a contest not recognized by the Democratic National Committee and one that won't determine the loyalty of convention delegates. Biden's name wasn't even on the ballot.

He won easily anyway. Whatever problems worry Democratic strategists about the president and his reelection campaign, winning the nomination isn't one of them. That's crucial: Modern presidents who have had to fight for it, including Jimmy Carter in 1980 and George H.W. Bush in 1992, ended up losing in November.

Two-thirds of Democratic primary voters, nearly 67%, wrote in Biden's name. Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, whose name was on the ballot, was backed by 20% and self-help author Marianne Williamson by 4%.

At his election-night party in Manchester, Phillips said Biden "absolutely won" in New Hampshire, but he added that voters "would much rather see a Nikki Haley-Dean Phillips matchup this November."

National polls do show wide voter dismay at the prospect of a rematch of Biden vs. Trump in the 2024 election. But that's exactly what they're likely to see ahead.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Donald Trump's win leaves Biden with these 5 lessons