President Biden sure of victory in coming US presidential election

In a rare print interview, Joe Biden addressed fears over his chances of victory in the coming US presidential election.

Biden said he was “the only one who has ever beat” his likely Republican challenger, Donald Trump, adding: “And I’ll beat him again”, according to The Guardian.

But the president was voicing a conviction at odds with most polling, in which clear majorities think that at 81 he is too old for a second term and narrow majorities put Trump ahead in a general election match-up.

Biden was in conversation with Evan Osnos of the New Yorker, whose short biography of Biden was published in 2020, the year the former senator and vice-president secured the Democratic nomination at his third attempt and then beat Trump.

Osnos wrote: “Now, having reached the apex of power, [Biden] gives off a conviction that borders on serenity – a bit too much serenity for Democrats who wonder if he can still beat the man with whom his legacy will be forever entwined.

“Given the doubts, I asked, wasn’t it a risk to say, ‘I’m the one to do it’?

“He shook his head and said: ‘No. I’m the only one who has ever beat him. And I’ll beat him again.’”

Poised to secure the Republican nomination after the Super Tuesday primaries this week, Trump is only three and a half years Biden’s junior. But even amid public slips and gaffes every bit as glaring as those by Biden, fewer Americans think Trump is too old to return to office.

Trump also faces unprecedented legal jeopardy, arising from his conduct in business, on the campaign trail and in office.

Of 91 criminal charges, 17 concern election subversion, 40 arise from Trump’s retention of classified information and 34 are related to hush-money payments to an adult film star who claimed an affair.

Trump also faces multimillion-dollar civil fines, over his business affairs and a rape allegation a judge called “substantially true”. Attempts to keep him off the ballot for inciting the January 6 insurrection, by supporters of his lie about electoral fraud in his defeat by Biden, failed on March 4 with the rejection by the US supreme court of a case in Colorado.

Osnos noted that regardless of such unprecedented challenges for a (near-certain) presidential challenger, “by the usual measures” on which incumbents are judged – falling violent crime, unemployment below four per cent, record stock-market highs – “Biden should be cruising to re-election”.

And yet, even amid warnings from pundits that conventional polling means little so far out from election day, Trump is generally ahead.

This weekend, a rash of polls made bad reading for Biden, though some said the same for Trump.