To be re-elected, Joe Biden will need all the help we can give him.
It is possible that Donald Trump’s guilty verdict announced yesterday in New York will be favorable to Joe Biden, but the Democratic candidate should not prolong the celebrations.
He is still lagging behind in the polls and his road is strewn with pitfalls.
Limited political fallout
As he left the court after the verdict was announced, the Republican candidate launched into his usual tirade.
Victim of a corrupt system and a corrupt judge, judged in territory hostile to New York and the only one capable of preventing the apocalypse for his fellow citizens, the 45e president has undoubtedly galvanized his troops.
- Listen to the American political column with Professor Luc Laliberté via QUB :
While there is no doubt about the effect on his supporters, it will take more to convince the rest of American voters. Even within the Republican Party, an ABC News/Ipsos poll (May 5) indicated that in the event of conviction, 4% of voters associated with the party would change their vote.
Several other polls point in this direction and if the percentage seems low to you, you must remember that it is a handful of voters spread across six or seven pivotal states who will make the difference.
All the votes won from undecideds, independents or Republican voters are worth gold.
Worried Democratic strategists
If the current president must have at least smiled at the announcement of the verdict, he has undoubtedly not forgotten the many concerns of his strategists and his close guard.
In addition to the decline in his popularity among the black community, Latin Americans and young people, Joe Biden is literally trapped by his own policy towards Israel.
At the end of the week, he affirmed that Benjamin Netanyahu, despite his “tragic error” in Rafah (death of 45 Palestinian civilians), had not crossed the “red line”.
Biden was one of the very few leaders not to strongly condemn Israel. Nothing to improve its rating among Americans of Arab origin and Muslims.
These voters were already angry and threatened not to renew their support for the Democrat in 2024. In certain states like Michigan that Biden absolutely cannot lose, the Biden administration’s policy towards the Israeli ally could lead to his defeat.
Number of the week
0.9%
This is Donald Trump’s lead in Michigan. Trump won the state in 2016 before Biden reclaimed it in 2020. The path to the surest victory for the incumbent president lies through a victory in Michigan. With such a small gap, the loss of votes among Arab Americans and Muslims could be catastrophic.
The quote of the week
“There’s only one way to keep Donald Trump out of the Oval Office: show up at the polls.” After the White House said the guilty verdict indicated that all are equal under the law, Joe Biden took to social media to solicit contributions, emphasizing the importance of voting on November 5.
The lie detector
Probably FALSE
“I was selected by the Naval Academy (Annapolis) in 1965. (…) I didn’t attend Annapolis because I dreamed of being a football player and you already had players like Staubach and Bellino . So I went to Delaware.”
Statement by Joe Biden during graduation at the West Point Military Academy on May 26.
This would not be the first time that Joe Biden has tried to embellish his personal story. He was a very good high school football player and played for the University of Delaware in 1961. However, several journalistic investigations and archival research have failed to unearth evidence to validate the president’s statement.
Photo of the week
Photo provided by the US Department of Defense.
