His predecessor in the presidency of the United States, Donald Trump, and many of his Republican rivals call him senile; However, Joe Biden gains points both in the economy and in the international field three months before the legislative elections that are anticipated to be difficult for the Democrats and with his sights also set on 2024.
The US president scored a major victory last Friday, when the US House of Representatives approved his $430 billion plan to combat Climate Change. A week earlier, data showed the country’s labor market is at its best in five decades.
The pace of hiring and the low unemployment rate, which is at pre-pandemic levels, revealed an unexpected dynamism at a time when the fight against inflation raises fears of a recession in the world’s largest economy.
Congress had also passed a law that unlocks $52 billion in subsidies to jump-start semiconductor production in the country, as well as tens of billions more for research and development.
Those legislative victories boost the Democrats’ campaign ahead of the midterm elections in November.
Joe Biden’s age works against him
The Republicans, with Trump in the lead, paint Biden as almost senile, incompetent and manipulated by the most leftist wing of the Democrats.
Ronny Jackson, who worked as a White House physician in the Trump administration, told Fox News that Biden suffered from “cognitive disorders,” even though a medical exam in November concluded that the president was “robust” and “able to “to carry out their duties.
Even among Democrats, Biden’s unpopularity is growing with his age. a New York Times poll shows that 64% of Democratic voters would prefer another candidate in 2024.
In the case of a hypothetical second term, he would be 86 years old at the end of it, in January 2029.
For what MP Carolyn Maloney believes that “it will not be presented” in 2024.
A perspective that the White House spokeswoman, Karine Jean-Pierre, discredits by assuring that “the president intends to compete” in 2024.
The issue puts Democrats in a difficult position, as there is no clear alternative to Biden, who turns 80 on November 20.
“He’s fit to be president right now. But he’s too old for the next election,” the magazine concludes in a recent article, while harshly criticizing claims from the right that Biden suffers from dementia.
How is Biden’s approval?
Biden, the 46th president of the United States, is not the reincarnation of his political hero, Franklin Roosevelt (1933 -1945), Slate political journalist Jordan Weissmann stressed on his Twitter account.
“But so far, it looks like Biden’s first term is on par with Obama’s in terms of success, with a much narrower (parliamentary) majority,” he said.
Yet only 18% of voters want it reintroduced in 2024, according to a Yahoo News/YouGov poll.
His approval rating exceeds 35%, and even reaches 30% in terms of his handling of the economy. Although only 26% consider that Biden is “capable of facing the challenges that the United States faces.”
Biden vs. Trump in 2024?
Biden’s insistence on running for re-election in 2024 increases the chances of repeating his showdown at the polls with his predecessor, Republican Donald Trump.
Trump, 76, is a viable candidate for 2024 after surviving two impeachment trials and a wide-scale investigation into his ties to Russia while he was president.
However, Republicans are also hesitant to run the controversial former president as their presidential candidate in the upcoming presidential election. Other figures within the political party already sound like possible candidates.
On the one hand, there is Mike Pence, who was Donald Trump’s vice president between 2017 and 2021, has already shown his interest in the Republican candidacy in 2024 and can use Trump’s fixation with the 2020 elections as a point in his favor.
“I don’t know if the president and I differ on issues. But we may differ on approach. I truly believe that elections are about the future,” Pence said at an event in Washington.
Another name that sounds for the candidacy is that of the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, who has positioned himself as a benchmark for conservatives in the United States.
With information from AFP and Reuters
