With seven months to go until the United States presidential elections, Joe Biden's path to re-election is becoming difficult. His 39.4% approval rating makes him the most unpopular president since World War II and he remains behind Donald Trump in six of the seven states considered key for these elections, according to the survey published this Tuesday by The Wall Street. Journal. To the criticism of his old age and inflation are added internal divisions in his party for maintaining military support for Israel during its offensive in Gaza and protest votes in numerous primary elections, led by groups of Arab, young and progressive citizens. .
Faced with the "threat to democracy" that Trump's return would pose, in their own words, Democrats are trying to join forces in a common front. Last week, former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama gave us an unprecedented image: they accompanied Biden at a fundraising event for his campaign in New York, which raised a record amount of more than $26 million in a single night. . A few days earlier, Obama met with Biden at the White House to design a plan to defeat Trump and, after four hours of meeting, he declared to the media that it is time for "everyone" in the Democratic Party to get "hands on." the work".
It is common for a candidate to resort to the political capital of a former president to gain support. Clinton was vocal in the presidential campaigns of his wife, Hillary Clinton, in the 2008 primaries – which she lost to Obama – and in 2016, when she won the nomination of her party, but was defeated in November by Trump. And, in 2020, Obama was another important asset for the victory of Biden, who was his vice president, and is once again gaining prominence in these elections.
But the powerful image of three Democratic presidents on the same stage "is something unprecedented and significant," says Hunter Walker, author of The Truce: Progressives, Centrists, and the Future of the Democratic Party. "As election day approaches, we are going to see more of Obama and his wife Michelle, who are still very popular among the Democratic electorate," predicts the journalist, who conceives Clinton's star appearance as his "return" to political life after his wife's defeat in 2016.
In his journalistic investigative book, which reveals unpublished conversations within the Democratic Party, Walker narrates the urgency that its different segments felt after Trump's victory in 2016 to put aside their differences and sign a truce, which gave them the strength to win. in 2020. During the magnate's presidency, "Obama was haunted by the idea that the strong division between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders had allowed Trump's rise," and that is why in 2020, when the party apparatus rejected the candidacy of the progressive, "worked behind the scenes to build a bridge between Sanders and Biden that would unite the progressive and moderate electorate." At that time, "his calls played an important role" in the design of the joint policies of the working groups formed by both candidates, which gave rise, among other proposals, to the Green New Deal.
Although these internal disputes are still present, and are clearly visible, for example, among congressmen critical of Israel, "Trump's existence is the glue that holds them together." And Clinton's return to the political scene exemplifies this: the former president campaigned against Obama in 2008, and against Sanders in 2016, and now gives his support to Biden, who has tried to place himself in the middle of centrists and progressives to "transcend the divisions," says Walker in an interview with La Vanguardia.
The president can benefit from the legacy of both presidents, who left the White House with high approval ratings – Clinton with 59% and Obama with 51.7% – to compensate for their vulnerabilities. "Obama is especially popular among young and progressive people, who do not feel challenged by Biden and tend to participate less," the journalist values, while "Clinton seduces the older, white and center voter," so the combination of both is "a really interesting display of strength and muscle, and also political strategy."
Strategy, in American politics, has a lot to do with money. And, in this field, Biden does surpass Trump, who is suffering to pay for his two civil convictions and his defense in four criminal trials, the first of which begins on April 15 in New York. The president has saved during the primaries, without any relevant opposition, and now that Trump has been confirmed as his rival in November, he faces the new electoral phase with a 100 million dollar advantage over the Republican. Four years ago, at this point, Trump's campaign surpassed him by 187 million, although Biden ended up entering more in the final stretch.
Fundraising was the main purpose of the joint event last Thursday, which raised 26 million in one day, with tickets starting at 250 dollars and reaching up to 500,000. Although some analysts downplay the importance of financial muscle in an election between two well-known candidates, Walker maintains that this advantage could be decisive for Biden's comeback.
"There is an important logistical component in the campaigns: flying the team to rallies, hiring security, producing t-shirts, placing posters and placing advertisements on television... all of this remains essential despite the transformations that have entailed social networks," he says, and gives relevance to another issue in which, precisely, Michelle Obama is very involved: voter registration. With her independent organization When We All Vote, the former first lady is promoting turnout with the goal of narrowing the registration gap between young and African-American voters and the general population.
The presence in the campaign of former presidents Clinton and Obama – more charismatic, better speakers and with greater political capital – can boost support for Biden and convince Democrats of the importance of voting to avoid the return of Trump and his far-right policies. But the truce within the Democrats, the common front against the politics of fear, has an expiration date. "It is showing signs of fragility and, whoever wins in these elections, the division between progressives and centrists will be relevant again in 2028," predicts Walker.
"The Democratic voter is very diverse: it represents a broad coalition of young people, different minorities, social classes and religions; in contrast, the Republican Party, united and without major fissures around Trump, is by far more homogeneous, white and older ", despite the growing support of Latinos and African Americans dissatisfied with Biden, says the author of The Truce.
In the current campaign, Biden is ignoring some sources of division on the American left, such as the cancellation of student debt, the free and universalization of education and healthcare, or policies against the climate emergency. Biden, Clinton and Obama have differences on all these issues, but they publicly display the urgency of uniting in the face of Trump's extremism, who promises to eliminate Obamacare, close the Department of Education, reverse climate policies and increase oil and gas drilling, among other controversial measures.
Both former presidents, in continuous communication with Biden, will make headlines until November; It remains to be seen to what extent their common front is enough to defeat Trump, launched in polls that, as the primaries have shown, tend to overestimate his support.
