Examining three scenarios about Biden's future

Afghan Voice Agency (AVA) - Monitoring: According to the report of the Fars News Agency International Group, due to the closeness of the 2024 US presidential election, polls have investigated the popularity of current and possible candidates, and speculations about the condition of the president of this country, Joe Biden, have increased.
These polls, which show the popularity of possible presidential candidates, can be a guide for predicting the possible outcome of the presidential election. However, various polls over time have shown that they cannot be trusted and reliably predicted the electoral behavior of the people. Perhaps, many factors may change the opinion of the participants on the eve of the election and record a result that was not predictable. 
Despite this, polls can be a good guide for candidates' election campaigns by showing the popularity of candidates and recording voters' opinions.
In this report, we will study polls about US President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump and examine three possible scenarios facing Biden.  
The results of polls show that currently, Biden's average approval rating is 38.9%, but he is in a weaker position compared to Trump - Chart 1. 
As the table above shows, Biden trails Trump by an average of 2.3 percentage points. In addition, according to these polls from six decisive states, Biden has a more unfavorable situation than Trump in five states. A swing state is a state that is undecided whether it will vote for the Democratic candidate or the Republican candidate.
Now, if we assume that all these polls reflect the reality of the presidential election, then the natural conclusion is that Biden will face serious challenges for re-election as President of the United States of America - in fact, he is already on track. The failure is from presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump.
Hence, Democrats and political commentators disagree on whether they should pay attention to poll results. They do not know for sure how close the results of these polls will be to the reality of electoral behavior. Especially since in some polls, regardless of the comparison between Trump and Biden, Joe Biden's popularity is gradually decreasing.
The graph below shows that on December 1, 2023, compared to January 23, 2021, Biden's approval rating is down by 16.6%.
Like almost every new president, Biden began his presidency with a strong approval rating 53.1 percent which has been called the "honeymoon" period of the Biden era.
But during his mission, with the departure from Afghanistan, increasing inflation and the spread of the Corona virus, the satisfaction with Biden's performance decreased and reached 38.2 percent. The important point is that the trend of dissatisfaction with the performance of the American president has been decreasing and has not yet exceeded 43% - Chart 2. On the other hand, polls pitting Biden against Trump are currently looking grim for the president. The Real Clear Politics polling average   currently shows Biden trailing Trump by 2 points nationally, by about 2 points in Michigan and Pennsylvania, and by 4-5 points in Nevada, Georgia and Arizona (Biden by just 1 point in a swing state). (Wisconsin leads the way). 
Three possible scenarios about Biden’s political future
According to what the polls show, Biden is not doing well at the moment, and he may have a fate that will not please the veteran Democrat politician. Hence, three scenarios can be considered;
First scenario - Democrats introduce another option instead of BidenOne of the notable features of Biden's election, especially starting in 2022, is that the Democrats have done well - even despite Biden's poor performance and the president's declining popularity. The party won most of the gubernatorial and Senate races in swing states in the midterm elections, and did well in this November's elections.
However, over the past two years these bad numbers have been a constant about Biden's popularity. Although a number of different events can be blamed for Biden's drop in popularity, it seems that nothing has had a positive or negative effect on his popularity since then.
It seems that people's understanding and general approach to Biden has remained constant at a certain point - with a few changes. This led some to conclude that the reason for the bad statistics for Biden is Mr. President himself.
Although Joe Biden was an option in the 2020 election to ward off the threat of Trump regaining power, he could not leave a significant performance and popularity or a charismatic face during these years.
He could never be as inspiring as previous Democratic presidents, for example Barack Obama. This issue becomes important when in the upcoming elections, Biden is faced with a group that basically does not have electoral behavior and even shows passive behavior.
Young people who, above all, consider Biden's personal characteristics, age and uncertainty about his mental health. Therefore, commentators believe that any other Democratic candidate instead of Biden could have won the election race over Trump. But the main question is here; do the Democrats have another option? Can anyone else survive the Republican media onslaught? Can it achieve an acceptable level of public acceptance in a short period of time?
However, Sen. Biden is an important issue that the Democrats cannot find a solution for. Especially voters in swing states who may believe that a young Democrat would be a better fit for America's future.
Although in the past two and a half years, Biden's age could not prevent him from being elected, it should not be overlooked that voters may be generally dissatisfied with his performance and consider the cause of his low performance to be related to Biden's age. In this case, if we accept that the problem is Biden's poor performance, then we should consider the second scenario.
Second scenario - Biden and the Democrats are facing a difficult situation  
It seems that the decrease in Biden's popularity is not only related to his personal performance, but politics and economy in other parts of the world are also in unfavorable conditions. In particular, many leaders of Western countries are currently very disliked and unpopular towards all ideological spectrums; Including Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Schultz.
This shows that not only Biden, but world leaders are facing many difficulties, and this point can take the blame from Biden's shoulders. 
However, one cannot be sure that voters will defend Biden with such a view. In successive polls, a significant majority of respondents have complained about the economic problems in America and Biden's poor performance.
For months, the American economy has been dealing with the highest rate of inflation, interest and rising unemployment. Stock markets have fallen sharply since early 2022 and in some cases have collapsed. Americans are facing wage cuts as a legacy of the pandemic. 
On the other hand, Biden's approval rating dropped significantly after America's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, a clear example of how a specific real event can affect his polls. (Although the Americans have repeatedly stated that they wanted the end of the US presence in Afghanistan, the reflection of the consequences of this decision in the domestic media, and especially the wave of attacks by the pro-Republican media, questioned not only the popularity of Biden, but also the performance of the Democrats).
Shortly after this event, the United States faced the war between Russia and Ukraine, which resulted in sanctions against Moscow and an increase in energy and grain prices in the world. This factor was another blow to Biden's popularity, which ultimately, the start of the Gaza war and America's support for the Zionist occupiers in genocidal actions, could not help the Democrats. According to polls, Biden's popularity was 39.1 percent the day before the October 7 attack by Hamas, and now it has reached 38.9 percent. 
It's a complex issue that has divided the Democratic political coalition and may play out unpredictably in the election and in swing states. The current state of the world may reinforce the feeling among some voters that the world is falling apart and that Biden, as the world's hegemonic leader, has not been able to put the pieces together.
Now, the theory is that if these problems fade, Biden's ratings may improve. But again, polls show that the improvement in the situation in the United States and the possibility of lowering the interest rate, along with the possibility of an improvement in the global situation, could not increase Biden's popularity chart.
The third scenario - the future will be better for Biden
Along with all the pessimistic predictions about Biden, there is another theory, which is that the current polls are not useful enough to predict the state of Biden's popularity. 
In fact, history shows that presidential general election polls have not reached an accurate final result in this interval.
Some political commentators, especially election campaign managers, believe that " the lesson of history is clear: don't pay attention to general election polls a year before the election." One reason is the lack of recognition of the new candidates, and the second reason refers to the environmental conditions during the election campaigns. 
In the run-up to an election, much of the energy is spent on the first step, encouraging voters to participate, to get them out of a passive state. After that, Biden should not ignore two groups of voters - disaffected Democrats and independent voters. Neglecting these two categories may cause Biden to have a weak start in the 2024 election.
Therefore, the Biden campaign will try to bring back the votes of these two groups. At the same time, remembering Trump's presidency and the blow he inflicted on the body of American democracy and increased the risk of religious war , may bring people's votes to Biden's ballot box. /Fars news