Editorial: Biden's shaky bridge over troubled water

United States President Joe Biden. Photo / AP

Editorial

The presidency of the world's most powerful politician has been fading towards a grey sunset at an alarming rate.

During his successful 2020 election campaign, United States President Joe Biden, now closing in on age 80, billed himself as a bridge to a new generation of leaders.

And it seems as though - a year and a half into his term - a large proportion of the electorate, the US political media, and Biden's own Democratic Party are mentally already on the other side of that river.

As the midterm elections approach in three months, Biden's polls are dire, potential party successors have been jockeying for position, and the media has been ranking the riders for the 2024 presidential primary.

There's a large thumbs down hanging over the idea that he should seek a second term. A CNN poll showed 75 per cent of Democratic voters want someone else for 2024.

Biden isn't on the ballot this November but he's the Democratic figurehead and the consequences of his party losing control of Congress would be severe for him.

The January 6 hearings into the Capitol riot and former president Donald Trump's role in it, plus the march of Trumpist Republicans towards more fringe beliefs, have not doomed the opposition party's hopes of regaining the Senate and House while economic anxiety is high, although unemployment is low.

It's a long way from Biden's 2020 triumph with his 306 to 232 Electoral College vote win and seven million margin in the popular count over Trump.

The first midterms after a presidential election are traditionally tough for the party of the White House occupant. Inflation at 9.1 per cent, high basic living costs and the stubborn Covid-19 pandemic have made it harder.

Biden may have navigated Russia's invasion of Ukraine reasonably well, supplying Kyiv with billions worth of weapons, but his domestic agenda has often been stymied with conservative Democrats sometimes allying with Republicans in the Senate. The Democrats only have a 51-50 advantage with the vice-president's tying vote.

So the news that a key conservative Democrat, Senator Joe Manchin, supported a US$739 billion deal, to go through a simple majority vote process, is significant. It would be a version of Biden's original US$3.5 trillion Build Back Better package.

It helps millions of families with health costs and importantly puts $369b towards combating climate change through tax incentives and is mostly paid for with a 15 per cent minimum tax on corporations earning more than US$1b a year.

A vote in favour this week would at least be a positive shift on climate change, even if a lot more action is required. Politically it gives the Democrats the chance of taking an argument into the campaign that more energy sector manufacturing jobs would be created.

Republicans have an advantage in fundraising overall for November but polls of party support show a close race.

The ruling party faces major hurdles to get to a better position for the midterms, but it's too soon to write off the Democrats from holding on to one or both chambers of Congress.

And that will have major bearing on how Biden's term plays out.