(Washington) Joe Biden visits a shipyard in Philadelphia on Thursday to illustrate the country’s industrial boom thanks to which the American president hopes to be reelected, at a time when Americans seem unenthusiastic about leaving him at the helm for four more years.
He has so far focused his campaign on his “Bidenomics”, his reforms aimed at reindustrialising the country after decades of relocation and the abandonment of historic industrial centres.
These reforms, which concern infrastructure as well as semi-conductors and green energy, aim to restore the country to an industrial power in sectors deemed to be crucial.
His visit to the shipyard in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (east), where wind turbines are manufactured offshorefalls within this framework.
“President Biden’s economic agenda supports America’s clean energy future and creates products made in the United States by American workers,” the White House said before the trip.
The American president indeed wants to base his campaign on the strong and continued recovery of the American economy post-pandemic, while the risk of a recession continues to recede and inflation seems to be returning to more acceptable levels.
It is on this economic success that the 80-year-old president hopes to build a victorious campaign for the presidency of 2024. Pennsylvania, as in every election, will play a crucial role in this election which could again oppose Joe Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump.
Polls at half mast
But polls show Americans remain pessimistic and only a minority give the Democratic president credit for the current economic strength.
According to a Monmouth University opinion poll released this week, only 34% of respondents approve of the Biden administration’s handling of inflation.
The employment front, with historically low unemployment at 3.6%, seems more positive for the American president: 47% of respondents approve of his policy in this area, but 48% still disapprove.
And despite efforts by the White House to show otherwise, 32% of respondents think the US economy is doing worse than other countries. Only 30% consider that it behaves better.
“The president is touting his ‘Bidenomics’, but the needle of public opinion hasn’t really moved,” said Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University polling institute. “The Americans give him little credit” in the matter.
American political polarization is also at work here: Joe Biden obtains good scores among Democratic voters, but particularly bad among Republicans.
So the spokesperson for the White House, Karine Jean-Pierre, pleads for patience, recalling the “historically low levels” of unemployment and the good inflation figures and repeating that the shape of the American economy is the envy of the international.
“Polls don’t tell the whole story,” she said.