One of the Democratic Party’s biggest voices, Nancy Pelosi, fueled speculation Wednesday about Joe Biden’s presidential bid, which many pollsters, several elected officials and, now, George Clooney have predicted is doomed to failure.
“I like Joe Biden. But we need another candidate”writes the actor, director and producer in a guest post for The New York Times.
George Clooney, a lifelong supporter of the Democratic Party, recalls attending a fundraiser for the American president in mid-June: “It’s terrible to say, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago is not the (…) Joe Biden of 2010. Not even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we saw in the debate.” June 27 failure against Donald Trump.
That evening, the American president appeared very confused and very tired.
George Clooney’s exit is not anecdotal: Joe Biden had until now found in the world of cinema a powerful media and financial relay.
On MSNBC, Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives who remains very influential, stubbornly refused to explicitly support the American president, who will seek a second term in November against his Republican predecessor.
“It’s up to the president to decide whether he will run.”she said on this channel popular with Democrats. “We all encourage him to make this decision because time is running out.”
The problem, in this case, is that the 81-year-old Democrat believes he has made up his mind.
” Turn the page “
Joe Biden wrote to his party’s parliamentarians on Monday to tell them that he was “firmly determined to stay in the race” and call them to ” to gather “ around him.
He wants now ” turn the page “according to the expression of its spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday.
The Democrat, who is trying to silence doubts about his energy and stamina by doubling down on activity, has another busy day on Wednesday.
He spoke briefly at a meeting of the main American union group, the AFL-CIO.
“There are a whole series of things that we are going to achieve with your help during a second term”he said, speaking without a teleprompter or notes.
Joe Biden will then attend the NATO summit in Washington, where he will host the leaders of the defense organization’s member countries for dinner.
To date, seven House Democrats have gone so far as to publicly call for him to throw in the towel.
A first elected member of the other chamber of the American Congress, the Senate, joined them on Tuesday evening.
“Donald Trump is, I think, on the path to victory and it could be a landslide, with the Senate and the House.”Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet said on CNN.
Surveys
The anxiety is so strong on Capitol Hill because many representatives and senators fear that Joe Biden will drag them down with him in the November legislative elections, held at the same time as the presidential election.
Several polls conducted since the debate have fueled these fears, indicating that Donald Trump is maintaining or even widening his advantage over his Democratic rival.
“What matters is not what we feel but what the numbers tell us. It is on the basis of an unaffected analysis of the pure and hard numbers that we must decide who we will invest in.”wrote on X Wednesday Ritchie Torres, a New York Democrat and member of the influential African-American congressional group.
A study by the Cook Political Report institute, based on 21 major opinion polls, credits the 78-year-old Republican with 47% of voting intentions at the national level, compared to 44% for Joe Biden.
Above all, it shows that the American president has lost support among African-Americans, young people and Hispanic voters.
Dave Wasserman, who edits this Cook Political Report review, believes that “Biden’s numbers (among these groups) are incompatible with any plausible victory scenario”.
