“Save democracy” and block the “semi-fascism” of the most radical Republicans: it was a revived Joe Biden, strong in rising polls, who on Thursday called on Americans to vote en masse for the Democratic Party in the legislative elections of november. At a fundraising event at an opulent private residence, the 79-year-old Democrat harshly criticized the most extreme fringe of the conservative camp and its “extreme MAGA philosophy” [« Make America Great Again »].
“What we are witnessing today is either the birth or the death knell of an extreme MAGA philosophy. It’s not just Trump, it’s a whole philosophy (…). It’s like semi-fascism,” Joe Biden said at the event in the inner suburbs of Washington. Later, addressing a nearby Democratic Party campaign rally, the US president said, “You must vote to literally save democracy again.”
Voters want a Democratic victory in the midterm elections
If opinion polls are always to be taken with a grain of salt, the trend that has emerged for about a month in favor of the Democratic camp seems clear. According to the FiveThirtyEight site, which aggregates polls, voters wanting a Democratic victory in the midterm elections were even slightly more numerous on August 24 (44%) than those hoping for Republican success (43.6%).
The victory Tuesday of a Democrat in a hotly contested district of New York State was seen as a further indication of the reversal of the trend. And some commentators are now wondering if Joe Biden – whose popularity rating has also been rising since a low in early July – is not going to make electoral history lie.
Traditionally, the president’s party loses these elections, which renew all the seats in the House of Representatives and 35 of the 100 seats in the Senate. But there, we are far from the “red wave” (the color of the conservative party) still envisaged at the beginning of the summer, when the strong inflation seemed to destroy the chances of the president and his party.
Abortion rights card
The most important factor in this new momentum owes nothing to Joe Biden, quite the contrary: it is the end of the constitutional right to abortion, decided at the end of June by a very conservative Supreme Court shaped by Donald Trump. While a majority of Americans are in favor of the right to abortion, the Democrats are determined to make this question a central issue in the ballot. Joe Biden has once again promised that in the event of a victory in November, the Democrats would enshrine the right to abortion in a federal law, which would be binding on conservative states that have already banned or severely limited abortion.
The party can also rest on the progress of the presidential program, in particular the vote of gigantic expenditure in favor of the fight against climate change and for technological innovation. “It’s undeniable that the legislative gains are piling up for President Biden and that’s reinvigorating the Democratic Party,” commented lobbyist Jonathan McCollum, who has worked on a number of campaigns. Not to mention other strong announcements, whether it is the death of the leader of Al-Qaeda following an American strike or the partial cancellation of student debt.
For their part, the Republicans show signs of feverishness. Their leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, believes that the Conservative Party has only a one in two chance of capturing a majority in the upper house of Congress. Is this trend unfavorable? Or the accumulation of procedures and investigations aimed at him? Still, Donald Trump, who does not carry Mitch McConnell in his heart, split a particularly virulent statement on Wednesday, calling him a “pawn” in the service of the Democrats.