With a year to go before the election, the polls are tough for Joe Biden, but he has no intention of giving up nor a compelling reason to do so.
For Biden, one devastating poll doesn’t wait after another. On average in recent polls, he is between one and two percentage points behind Donald Trump.
Worse still, according to the latest New York Times poll, Trump is leading in five of the six key states he lost in 2020.
Things are going badly for Biden and speakers are urging him to retire, as they have said a hundred times.
Biden will not go
These speculations are completely useless. Biden doesn’t care about these stage managers. His decision has been made, it is too late to find a replacement and these hypothetical scenarios are fruitless.
Biden will stay. Almost all of his predecessors before him did this at the end of their first term in office. Next, he’s convinced he’s the best Democratic candidate to beat Donald Trump, and he’s most likely right. No one else has shown that he or she would do better.
Like many analysts, many voters would have liked to see Biden give up his seat to a hypothetical successor with a bright future, but they probably never gave it serious thought.
Polls are wrong
Yes, but… the polls? According to the best study on the subject by Robert Erikson and Christopher Wlezien, since the invention of polls, the correlation between voting intentions more than 300 days before the election and the vote itself has been virtually zero. A coin toss predicts both the outcome and the polls a year in advance.
If you’re skeptical, ask “President Mitt Romney” what he thinks of the polls that predicted an easy victory for him over Barack Obama in November 2011. Those calling for Biden to resign today are likely the same ones who called for him to leave. Timing of Obama’s departure.
Biden was there in 2011 and wrote on Tuesday evening: “Voters choose, not polls.” Especially in the elections on Tuesday in around thirty states, the Democrats were able to make gains almost everywhere.
Twelve more months
Of course, nothing is certain. A Biden defeat is not guaranteed, but it is not impossible.
Economic pessimism needs to be overcome, but the fact that objective data on the American economy remains solid remains encouraging. There are challenges abroad, too, but the public is already wondering whether an ignorant and hot-headed president would fare better than an experienced leader who doesn’t lose his temper.
Additionally, one judge found, among other things, that Biden’s opponent had committed rape, and another ruled that his company committed massive financial fraud… not to mention the 91 criminal charges that will dominate headlines leading up to the election.
But vigilance is required. Very few leaders in the world today escape voter discontent – talk to Justin Trudeau – and the risks of authoritarian deviations if Trump returns are too serious to be taken lightly.
