Can Biden defeat Trump in the rematch?

Sohn Byoung-kwon
The author is a professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations, Chung-Ang University.

The U.S. presidential election is less than six months away. The return match of the century between current and former U.S. presidents will be staged on Nov. 5. But President Joe Biden, 81, faces an uphill battle against his rival Donald Trump, 77.

Though by a narrow margin, Trump has been leading Biden for quite a while. In all seven swing states, Biden lags behind Trump by up to 5 percentage points in many polls. What went wrong with Biden?

Robert Hur, the special counsel who investigated Biden’s possession of classified documents, described him as “an elderly man with a poor memory.” Biden’s old age — his weakest point — was brought under the spotlight once again. Especially, young voters with a penchant for the Democratic Party dislike Biden’s advanced age.

Illegal immigration from the southern border poses another problem for Biden. In 2023 alone, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection arrested approximately 2.5 million illegal migrants, nearly doubling the 1.37 million detained during Trump’s presidency in 2019 and 2020. Trump’s strategy to link Biden’s lax border control to the worsening domestic security situation is working.

But high gas prices and rent, despite improved macroeconomic indicators, bode ill for Biden’s campaign, as voters can’t feel the economic recovery those indices show. The fluctuating international oil prices from the protracted Israel-Hamas war also fuels economic woes.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bellicosity toward Hamas despite the miserable fate of Palestinian refugees poses another headache for Biden. Due to his image as a weak president being led by the hawkish Israeli leader, Biden supporters are increasingly turning their backs on him. In the Democratic primary in Michigan, a swing state, in February, Muslim voters unnerved the Biden camp by campaigning to abandon him. The ongoing protest in U.S. colleges against Israel also has reached a serious level.

Trump’s weakest spot is his judicial risks. But it will be a long time until U.S. courts deliver their verdicts on the former president, except for his financial fraud trial which just began. The trial in a federal district court over his involvement in the Jan. 6 Capitol riot is suspended after the Supreme Court accepted Trump’s claim of “absolute immunity from prosecution” over election interference. Trump’s judicial risks are of little help to Biden.

As a result, Biden can hardly turn the situation around despite economic recovery. The possibility of Trump returning to the White House is growing. Of course, voters can feel the economic rebound in the remaining six months. If the Israel-Hamas conflict is resolved through a truce or an end-of-war declaration, Biden can expect his supporters to return. And if Trump is convicted of accounting fraud in his civil trial in a New York district court, swing voters or some Republican supporters can choose Biden over Trump.

Last month, NBC News reported the results of a poll showing Biden leading Trump in a five-way race, including minor candidates. Another survey showed that independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. with 13 percent support, will eat away at Trump’s votes more than Biden’s, leaving room for Biden’s rebound.

But Trump’s supremacy in swing states cannot be brushed off. Our government should prepare careful measures to cope with Trump’s re-election.

Some security experts say we do not have to worry about Trump’s comeback thanks to the reinforcement and systemization of the Korea-U.S. alliance in the Yoon Suk Yeol administration. We did have such wishful thinking before and after the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

But after taking office in 2017, Trump surprised the world with totally unexpected actions. Just think of the United States withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement, seceding from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), better known as the Iran nuclear deal, and even threatening NATO — not to mention his bromance with strongman Vladimir Putin. Trump complains about America supporting Ukraine with taxpayer money.

Upon entering the White House in January 2017, Trump demanded Korea bear the defense cost five times more than before. In a recent interview with Time Magazine, Trump mentioned the defense cost-sharing issue again. Our government must find a certain pattern from his puzzling remarks and minimize risks. Otherwise, Korea will be headed to uncharted waters.

Translation by the Korea JoongAng Daily staff.