Joe Biden’s Reelection Campaign: Hope in the Midst of Chaos
Joe Biden’s reelection campaign has been characteristically quiet, but this week, things took a positive turn for the President. The stock market reached record highs, and inflation has been kept in check, leading to a proclamation from Paul Krugman, economics Nobel laureate, that the war on inflation is over and that Biden’s side has won. Donald Trump, who has been attacking the economy’s performance since his reluctant departure from office, tried to take credit for the stock market’s success, which prompted a telling response—investors are projecting that Biden will win, and that will drive the market up.
The biggest news for Biden, however, is Donald Trump’s legal troubles. Just three days after he won the New Hampshire primary, a New York jury ordered him to pay $83 million for defaming E. Jean Carroll, whom he had previously been found liable for sexually abusing. Criminal trials are next, and a Quinnipiac poll found that 24% of Trump supporters say they won’t vote for him if he is convicted. (“Reason #50,000,000 Trump Won’t Beat Biden: His PAC Spent $50M on Legal Fees,” the Nikki Haley campaign quipped.) Trump’s victory speech in New Hampshire was overshadowed by his sour rant about Haley, who only dug in deeper. His courtroom appearances and efforts to persuade anti-Trump holdouts in the G.O.P., however, are putting him in environments where his demeanor works against him. His supporters didn’t help their cause last week when they declared war on Taylor Swift.
Despite Trump’s continued strength in the polls and the Supreme Court’s recent reversal of reproductive rights, the U.S. is making progress. In 2022, the U.S. recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic, and unemployment has stayed below 4%. The country is now performing more strongly than every other wealthy nation, including China, and the post-pandemic recovery reversed about 25% of the growth in wage inequality that had taken place in the previous four decades. The wealth of Black and Hispanic families grew significantly between 2019 and 2022, while the wealth of white families increased 31%. Major, unprecedented bills became law, committing the country to an expansive building program and accelerating the green transition. The progress isn’t linear—we are producing immense amounts of gas and oil—but there are glimpses of an extraordinary transformation. In South Dakota, of all places, 84% of in-state electricity is generated by renewable resources.
Biden’s job approval rating, however, is low, and polls indicate that voters prefer Trump in every swing state and trust him to handle the economy by a wide margin. While fewer than 30% of respondents say that the country is on the right track, theories abound. Even if inflation is in retreat, prices for gas, groceries, and rent are still higher than they’ve been in recent memory, and the news has focussed on the flood of migrants at the southern border and the war in Ukraine, which can suggest instability and unease. Some liberals view Trump’s continued strength and the Supreme Court’s rulings on reproductive rights as evidence that America is still defined by its reactionary turn.
Biden and his campaign staff are grappling with how to approach the election. The easiest route might be to run against Trump’s assault on democracy and social values, and against the extremism of his movement on gender and abortion, which has given him a huge advantage among women. Simon Rosenberg, a strategist, advised keeping it simple: “Democrats are going to save the country. Republicans are dangerous.” He pointed out that since Trump displayed his MAGA tendencies in 2017-2018, the Democrats just keep winning elections. They won the 2018 cycle, the 2020 cycle, and in unexpected ways in 2022. But others, like Joel Benenson, who helped steer Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s Presidential bids, suggest taking the opposite approach. He advised Biden to stop talking about Trump, saying that Trump’s legal troubles are alarming enough on their own. Elections are about the future, not the past, and Biden needs to make the race a forward-looking choice based on economic vision and values.
Biden, however, is letting Trump have center stage, hoping that voters will be reminded of how much they despise him. However, the consequences of this tactic have been a quiet campaign from Biden, with him emphasizing the importance of the election but doing so in a subdued manner. He faces a choice between making the election about the nation’s progress under his Administration or about the destructive potential of a second term for Trump. However, Biden probably needs to do both—a little about the future, a little bit about the past—and that means turning up the volume.
Priyam Gera