Dina Mahmoud (Washington, London)
Amid a strong convergence in the popularity of both candidates aspiring to victory in the November 5 elections in the United States, Democratic President Joe Biden and his Republican rival, Donald Trump, American experts in public opinion studies revealed that Biden is now facing an unexpected obstacle that may undermine his effort to remain. In the White House, and it relates to the nostalgia of some voters for the era of his predecessor and competitor.
An opinion poll conducted by the American news network CNN a few days ago showed that 55% of these voters consider that Trump’s presidency was a success, compared to 44% who adopt a different position, which is in stark contrast to what had resulted in it. A similar poll took place in the United States, before the Republican billionaire left the Oval Office, in January 2021.
In that poll, which was conducted days after protesters attacked the Capitol building in an attempt to disrupt a joint session of the House of Representatives and the Senate held at the time to certify Biden’s victory in the 2020 elections, 55% of voters considered Trump’s presidency a failure.
Analysts at the time attributed this trend to the chaotic events that took place in the last months of the Republican president’s term, especially the storming of the Capitol, which was followed by the issuance of a recommendation from an investigation committee formed to look into that incident, to take criminal measures against Trump, under the pretext of “his call for rebellion and conspiracy against institutions.” American.
However, the results of the latest poll revealed that the echoes of these events and other difficulties that Americans faced during the Trump era, especially as a result of the policies that were followed to deal with the Corona epidemic crisis, have largely faded from the minds of voters, to the extent that 61% of them, They now see Biden’s presidency as a failure, compared to 39% who consider it a success.
A large number of Americans link this ruling to reasons related to the economic situation in their country during the last four years.
Despite the relative decline in inflation rates, they are still higher than they were when Trump was in office, which led to the percentage of support for the Biden administration’s economic policies not exceeding 34% of voters, according to a CNN poll.
This percentage decreases to 29%, if it comes to Americans’ support for the measures taken by the Democratic administration to curb inflation, which reached a rate of 2.7% last March, an increase of up to 1.2% from what it was in February, when it was hovering around the level 2.5%.
Analysts stressed that these results make it difficult for the Democratic president to consider the upcoming elections as a referendum on his Republican rival himself, or to attempt to benefit from the mistakes that the Republican administration made between 2016 and 2020.
Analysts pointed out that the nostalgia expressed by a large portion of voters for Trump’s only term also means that Biden and his campaign team must make more efforts to remind his citizens of the turmoil that occurred in that era.
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