WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden faces growing calls from members of his own party to drop out of the presidential race, he has sought to bolster his case for staying in by pointing to another election that has opposed polling and panic across the Atlantic. .
Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Monday, a day after France’s right-wing National Rally party and its allies finished third in seats won in France’s snap parliamentary election, Biden compared the results of France’s elections this fall. The right lost after the first round of voting and despite leading in public opinion polls.
“France has rejected extremism,” Biden said. “Democrats will reject it here as well.”
Biden reiterated that sentiment in a call with the campaign’s biggest donors and backers later that day, a caller told NBC News. “One of the things happening in the world is the extreme right, the extreme MAGA conservatives of France, [Marine] Le Pen’s party and others, they’re getting killed, they’re being kicked around because people are going, ‘Wow, we’re not going there,'” Biden said, according to the source. (His comment first The New York Times.)
But France’s vote was not as simple as Biden made it out to be. The election was a rejection of the far-right, but also of French President Emmanuel Macron and his centrist coalition. It’s the latest data point in a trend that’s spreading around the world — something experts say Biden should be very worried about. Voters disaffected by the post-Covid economy and, in some cases, angry by the influx of immigrants, they deal with failure of officials after failure in the ballot box.
As Biden faces intense political backlash after a dismal debate performance last month, polls show American voters are expressing similar dissatisfaction with the status quo that helped former President Donald Trump build narrow national and battleground electoral leads.
“It’s a bad time to be president,” said Ian Bremmer, president and founder of the Eurasia Group, a geopolitical risk firm, adding that voters around the world are yearning for change. “No matter what you think of Biden’s record, no matter how successful he’s been, it’s a tough time for an incumbent to win.”
In France, Macron’s Ensemble alliance won far fewer seats than in 2022, finishing second behind the leftist New Popular Front. The National Rally achieved the highest total of places in history, as well as the most votes – A point Trump was quick to emphasize On the Monday Truth Social page. (Still, National Rally’s vote share was only third in actual parliamentary seats due to strategic voting from the center-left.)
A few days ago in the English Channel, Voters in Great Britain have kicked out the Conservative Party the center-left Labor Party won a landslide victory and was voted out of power for the first time in 14 years. In both cases, deep dissatisfaction with incumbents led to radical change.
Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, said these contests and recent elections in India and South Africa “serve as a warning that Joe Biden is very vulnerable as an incumbent in a time of high discontent. Either stay home or vote for Donald Trump.”
“The ‘age’ issue makes Biden’s situation worse,” Haass added.
Biden allies who spoke to NBC News said there are different factors that make them feel more positive about the United States.
For one, The US economy is stronger than the economies in Western Europe – even many Americans express similar levels of dissatisfaction. Biden supporters predict that sentiment will return before November as the economy continues its post-Covid recovery. Moreover, former President Trump, who has deeply resonated with the American electorate, is not a blank slate or relatively little-known challenger, as other incumbents have faced. Different electoral and government systems cannot be compromised either.
“People were looking for signs to confirm that they wanted to report,” said David McGonigal, assistant director of Homeland Security Activities. group trying to raise Biden’s foreign policy agenda. “People are so eager to write off the Democrats in November, to say that overseas polls spell bad news for Biden’s chances in November. This is at least some evidence to the contrary.”
Bremmer said the anti-incumbency energy is so strong that if he drops out of the race, it could include not only Biden, but also a potential replacement, because voters can connect them together. At the same time, he said the United States “could easily be an exception” to this trend because of the deep political divisions that exist there.
“So few places and so few votes are actually up for grabs,” Bremmer said. “And because Trump is almost unpopular as an outsider.”
international law gained a new reputation amid a wave of anti-government sentiment. Nigel Farage, a Trump ally and darling of the right wing, saw his Reform UK party win a seat in parliament for the first time, winning around 14% of the UK vote. In the European Parliament elections last monthGermany’s far-right AfD party saw big gains, including the National Rally, which prompted Macron to call snap internal elections.
Meanwhile, right-wing parties across Europe they try to form A coalition that can increase its influence in that institution if it is officially recognized by the European Parliament.
Marine Le Pen, longtime leader of the National Rally, “The future is rising” France said after the vote Sunday. “It didn’t rise enough this time, but it’s still rising. And as a result, our victory is actually just delayed.”
Macron’s move to call early elections after the rise of the National Rally in the European Parliament elections was a gamble with French voters reluctant to hand over power to an untested and staunchly anti-immigrant right-wing party, especially one so close to the start of the Olympics. .
National Rally’s momentum was disrupted as left-wing and centrist candidates across the country put aside their differences and called for unity against the long-standing far-right, dubbed in France the “cordon sanitaire.” Many candidates have dropped out of three-way races, giving their left- or center-right challenger a larger lane to keep out a right-wing candidate.
But with Macron’s group losing 76 seats and finishing third in the popular vote, it’s clear voters have little interest in maintaining the status quo, even if the National Rally is not in the running to power.
“With this vote, either on the right or on the left [people] said Alexandre Pesey, founder and executive director of the Institut de Formation Politique, a conservative training institute in Paris.
Former French ambassador to the United States, Gerard Araud, said that the political realities in France and the United States are “striking” because of their similarities.
“This is a rebellion of 35% of our citizens, and they simply say: “We want to throw the table. We don’t have access to the table anymore,” Araud said. “The problem is that we, the elite, we really shouldn’t frown upon these people. They feel our hatred. And in a way, they rejoice in our anger or sadness. All our anger pleases them. I should listen to them.”
Even as both Macron and Biden made changes in immigration policy – though not as significant as their right-wing critics have argued – their actions have influenced few in this regard. Pointing to other political initiatives, Araud said Biden and his administration are trying to address the concerns of disaffected people.
“The problem is that the Biden administration has tried to address their concerns with the Reindustrialization, De-Inflation Act,” Araud said. he said. “It doesn’t seem to be working.”