After unsurprisingly flying through his party’s primary in South Carolina, American President Joe Biden is focusing his efforts on Sunday on a very strategic state, Nevada, against a backdrop of mixed polls.
The 81-year-old Democrat, as expected, crushed the vote held in the southeastern state, with a large African-American population and in which he had no real competition, by winning 96.2% of the vote.
He wanted to see it as a happy omen, he who had relaunched in 2020 a campaign that got off to a bad start by largely winning the primary in this same state.
“I have no doubt that you have put us on the right track to win the presidency again, and to make Donald Trump, again, a loser,” commented the American president, from the west coast.
Because Joe Biden did not come to savor his victory in South Carolina. The Democrat headed to California on Saturday, Democratic land and a source of generous funding, before heading to Nevada on Sunday.
Biden on “mission”
The arid, mountainous state holds its Democratic primary on Tuesday. But it is above all the November presidential election that the American president is thinking about, and the increasingly probable prospect of a new duel against his Republican predecessor Donald Trump.
In 2020, Joe Biden narrowly won Nevada, one of these “ swing States », these undecided states on which the presidential candidates concentrate all their efforts.
The presidential election should, as in 2020, be decided by small vote differences in certain constituencies in these strategic states: Nevada, Michigan, Arizona and even Pennsylvania.
In Las Vegas, the largest city in Nevada, the president wants to talk about “the issues of this election”, according to his campaign team.
In other words, continue to hammer home that the November election will not only decide economic policy or diplomacy, but the future of American democracy.
On Saturday, Joe Biden declared: “We are not leading a campaign, we are leading a mission” against Donald Trump.
Surrounded by lawsuits, the Republican nevertheless continues to mobilize a loyal, and even fervent, base with his sometimes violent rhetoric about an America in “decline”, which he would be the only one capable of restoring.
Joe Biden, for his part, hardly arouses enthusiasm, despite the good health of the American economy. His age worries even the Democratic electorate – where that of his rival, 77 years old, hardly seems to move his supporters.
The president assured Saturday that he was “confident” about his campaign, because “people are starting to better realize” what choice awaits them.
Weak point on immigration
But Joe Biden’s eternal optimism cannot really be fed by the polls: he remains generally very unpopular, and the surveys on his chances of re-election are mixed.
On Sunday, the NBC channel published an opinion survey giving Donald Trump ahead of Joe Biden in terms of voting intentions, at 47% against 42%.
According to the same poll, the Democrat would, however, overtake his rival if the latter, prosecuted in several cases including four criminal cases, was convicted by the courts this year (45% against 43%).
A few days ago, Quinnipiac University, whose surveys are closely followed, published a poll in which Joe Biden on the contrary widened the gap over Donald Trump in terms of voting intentions (50% against 44% ).
The poll published by NBC also confirms that immigration, against a backdrop of migrant arrivals at the border with Mexico, is a major weak point for Joe Biden.
Concerning the race for the Republican nomination, Donald Trump is guaranteed to win the votes of the delegates from Nevada, at the end of a somewhat Byzantine process.
The next big stop for him will be in South Carolina, where the right is organizing its primary on February 24.
The former Republican president will face the former governor of the state, Nikki Haley, the only one who still stands up to him. If he dismisses it, nothing will stand in the way of Donald Trump being chosen this summer to represent the Republican Party in the presidential election.