Joe Biden returns to the campaign trail on Friday in the crucial state of Michigan after delivering a press conference that neither allayed nor aggravated concerns about his candidacy.
The American president is due to deliver a speech at 6 p.m. in Detroit, in this industrial state in the Great Lakes region that he absolutely must win in November to beat the Republican Donald Trump.
He will, according to his campaign team, describe “what America could accomplish in the first hundred days of a second Biden term.”
“I’m going to stay on the move,” the 81-year-old Democrat promised on Thursday, during a press conference presented as crucial for his political destiny, very uncertain since a calamitous debate on June 27 against the 78-year-old Republican billionaire.
Everyone will have seen what they wanted to see in this exercise of about an hour, which above all confirmed that Joe Biden is now the most avidly scrutinized politician on the entire planet.
The president’s supporters were pleased with his knowledge of issues, particularly international ones, and his generally controlled performance.
“No, Joe Biden doesn’t have a PhD in foreign affairs. He’s just fucking strong,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates cheered during the news conference.
A bleed, no hemorrhage
In the other camp, his haphazard speech and, above all, two monumental slips of the tongue were pointed out.
Shortly before appearing before journalists, the American president announced “President Putin” when he wanted to welcome Ukrainian head of state Volodymyr Zelensky. He immediately corrected himself.
During the press conference, he referred to “Vice President Trump” instead of his running mate Kamala Harris, much to the delight of his opponent. “Good job, Joe!” Trump quipped.
On Friday, one of the architects of the Democratic leader’s victory in 2020, African-American elected official James Clyburn, assured NBC that he was “totally committed” to Joe Biden.
The question now is whether the president bought enough time on Thursday to weather the political and media storm, or whether he has merely postponed an inevitable withdrawal.
The slow drain of support within the Democratic Party continues, but has not yet turned into a hemorrhage.
At the latest count, around fifteen Democratic parliamentarians have openly asked the American president to withdraw his candidacy before the nomination convention in August in Chicago.
All eyes are now on the party’s leading figures, and two in particular: former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Barack Obama.
Delay in key states
The former, a politician of formidable skill, insistently asked Joe Biden this week to “make a decision,” pretending to ignore his determination to stay in the race. The latter, who was seen campaigning with his former vice president, and who retains immense influence over the Democratic electorate, is for the moment silent.
The polls, however, follow one another and are similar.
All indicate that Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in the debate, while it has heightened Americans’ concerns about his ability to govern for much longer, has not done much to move the electoral lines in a country that is extremely politically divided.
An opinion poll broadcast by public radio NPR credits the Democrat with 50% of the national voting intentions, compared to 48% for Donald Trump.
Other polls give the Republican the advantage, but still within the margin of error.
The most worrying trend for the president remains his persistent delay, according to several opinion polls, in certain decisive states.
Among them, Michigan, therefore, but also Nevada, in the west of the United States, where Joe Biden will go next week.
Eager to prove his vitality, the octogenarian president, who until recently avoided spending too much time with journalists, will also give an interview Monday on NBC.
His team is promising “other interviews” as “counter-programming to the Republican convention”, which should lead to the inauguration of Donald Trump next week in Milwaukee, in the north of the United States.