BIDEN. The American president could lose power in Congress at the end of the midterms, this November 8, 2022, in the face of the rise of the Republicans. The elections will be decisive for the end of Joe Biden’s term and perhaps his candidacy in 2024.
Will the results of the midterm elections in the United States be tough on Joe Biden? The American president is not carried by the latest dynamics which announce a loss of momentum, even the defeat of the Democratic camp. Joe Biden approaches the midterms of 2022 with a low popularity rating as is usually the case halfway through the presidential term, but the approval rate enjoyed by the head of state is even lower than that of Donald Trump in 2018 in particular. in key states that are about to switch to the Republican camp. An unpopularity partly due to the first half of his mandate hit by the war in Ukraine but also economic difficulties such as galloping inflation in the United States or the skyrocketing increase in the price of gasoline. “Joe Biden is considered “responsible” for what is happening in the country, at the economic level”, underlines moreover Marin Fortin-Bouthot, researcher and coordinator of the Observatory on the United States of the Raoul- Dandurand in Canada with Internet user.
To win the 2022 midterms or at least reverse the trend, the American president has therefore bet on his discretion with a late and distant entry into the campaign of the Democratic candidates, some of whom “do not want to explicitly associate themselves with the president” according to the specialist. . Joe Biden also played the resolutely political program card by taking up the issue of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy (abortion) undermined by the Republicans last June. But if the strategy paid off at the start of the campaign, the subject was quickly swept away by the first concern of Americans: their wallet and inflation. Will this positioning allow the Democrats to secure a majority in the US Congress? And to Joe Biden to ensure a more obvious end of term?
Joe Biden and the Democratic camp more broadly can hardly be optimistic when estimates and various analyzes announce a loss of seats in Congress. Regarding the House of Representatives, which is completely renewed and where the Democrats have a very small margin with only eight seats in advance, there is “about an 85% chance that the Republicans will win”, according to Marin Fortin-Bouthot . On the other hand, the match should be tighter in the Senate where only a third of the seats are put into play, including 22 won by elected Republicans. With only one senator elected per state, the greater popularity of the Democrats (and not of Joe Biden) could allow the President’s camp to keep control of the upper house of Congress.
The fact remains that losing only one of the two chambers would make the end of Joe Biden’s mandate difficult with a forced cohabitation between Democrats and Republicans. And “if the Republicans take over both chambers of Congress, it will be very difficult for the President to follow his legislative agenda. He could therefore be a victim of this political immobility”, summarizes Marin Fortin-Bouthot.
Why is Joe Biden struggling in the 2022 midterms?
If he is the president to have won the most votes from voters in the history of the presidential election (more than 81 million – Obama had obtained 69 in 2008 and 65 in 2012, 2e and 3e highest totals, Trump having counted a little less than 63), Joe Biden has lost popularity and is advancing feverishly towards the midterms of 2022. It is only with 42% of favorable opinions that the American president approaches the ballot of the November 8 and the Democratic Party (left) which holds the power could suffer from this bad image. But to what does Joe Biden owe his tumble in public opinion? Since his arrival at the White House, “his situation has only deteriorated” summarizes, with Internet user, Marie-Christine Bonzom, former French journalist in the United States, in charge of monitoring the presidency. Between the Covid crisis and the migration crisis in Mexico followed by the war in Ukraine, Joe Biden tried to manage, at the same time, several hot issues, without managing to resolve them, before deciding in favor of the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. A departure which took place in total chaos, an attack having been perpetrated at Kabul airport, killing 13 American soldiers. A pivotal episode in the beginning of Joe Biden’s mandate: since that day, the 79-year-old man must govern a country with a majority of unfavorable opinions, like Obama and Trump before him.
Joe Biden eclipsed by Barack Obama during the 2022 midterms?
Given his low popularity, Joe Biden thought he was doing the right thing by staying away from the midterms election campaign. The American president only appeared in meetings in mid-October and sometimes kept his distance from the candidates, even depriving himself of trips to four states that were nevertheless key to the victory of the Democrats. But if the head of state wanted to be discreet, the campaign needed a leader and it was Barack Obama that the American left appealed to. The ease and oratorical talent of the former head of state breathed new life into the campaign and rekindled the flames which are threatening to go out in the face of the rise of the conservative right in the polls.
Joe Biden, however, may have suffered from the comparison with the liveliness and passion of Barack Obama’s speeches. In recent months, despite his many trips, the American president has seemed to lock himself in a “bubble” disconnected from the daily concerns of Americans in the words of his Democratic predecessor.
An electoral strategy error for Joe Biden?
The midterms campaign was not only played on personalities but also on social issues. Joe Biden and all the Democratic candidates took on the burning issue of abortion, which was undermined by the Republican justices of the US Supreme Court who overturned the constitutional right to abortion, on June 24 2022. Faced with the anger and revolt provoked by the legal decision, the Democratic angle of attack was all found: defending abortion and promising to “engrave in stone Roe v. Wade (the name of the judgment guaranteeing access to abortion, editor’s note) once and for all” while denouncing the policy of the Republicans.
But by focusing almost exclusively on abortion, Joe Biden and didn’t the Democrats miss the election? The answer is “yes” according to Marin Fortin-Bouthot. Notably because during the campaign, economic issues related to purchasing power, the price of gasoline and more generally inflation, which rose by 8.2% over one year in September, took over. “Abortion and social issues are important issues, but the economic issue is central because all Americans are subject to the price of gasoline. Many of them are tight in their finances. It is a more concrete question. We have the impression that, on the one hand, the Republicans highlight the economic issues and the Democrats the social issues. This strategy has run out of steam”, analyzes the researcher.
Joe Biden, US presidential candidate in 2024?
As he prepares to celebrate his 80th birthday on November 20, Joe Biden spoke on October 22 of his “intention” to be a candidate for a new presidential term in 2024. A decision that has not yet been officially taken. but on which Joe Biden already has a precise idea and gives himself time for confirmation. The American president, who already holds the record for the oldest American head of state, assures that he has the support of his wife to run for a second term: “My wife thinks that we are doing something very important and that I shouldn’t turn away from it,” he told the channel. MSNBC October 22. But more than the support of his wife, it is the health of Joe Biden which raises questions about his possible candidacy in two years.
If the Democrat confirms his intention to run in 2024, there is a good chance that he will meet a former opponent in the person of Donald Trump who has also mentioned his “very likely” candidacy. Note that before embarking on the presidential race, Joe Biden will again have to go through the Democratic primaries.
What is Joe Biden’s health?
Joe Biden punctuated the first half of his term with gaffes of all kinds during speeches or public performances. If some have especially aroused smiles, others have asked the question of the health of Joe Biden. In recent months, several outings by the American president have stood out: an address to an elected official who died this summer during a conference held on September 28 or more recently the repeated confusion between the war in Ukraine and that in Iraq reiterated at the beginning of the November during a speech in Florida. If blunders can happen, all these mistakes together seem to reflect in the eyes of some voters and political commentators the fragile health of Joe Biden.
A theory fueled by another episode that occurred in the private setting at the end of October in the garden of the White House in which the president would have momentarily lost himself according to the journalist Benny Johnson. But if some dare to speak of senile dementia, the Franco-American political scientist Nicole Bacharan, questioned on RTL October 28 judges that it is too early to think about it: “The fact that he is an aging and tired man, that worries everyone, from there to say that he is senile and that he no longer controls his thought , I think that all the same, we do not have enough elements to say it”.