WASHINGTON — Amid growing calls from members of his own party to drop out of the presidential race, President Joe Biden is trying to shore up the case for staying, pointing to another election across the Atlantic that overturned dismal opinion polls and panic on the center and left.
Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday, a day after France’s snap parliamentary election in which the right-wing National Rally party and its allies finished third in parliamentary seats, Biden compared the French election results to his own this fall, in which the right-wing lost despite leading in the first round and in opinion polls.
“France rejected extremism,” Biden said. “Democrats will reject extremism here too.”
Biden reiterated this point on a call with campaign donors and supporters the same day, a participant in the call told NBC News. “One of the things that’s going on around the world is that the far-right in France, the extreme conservative MAGA, [Marine] “Le Pen and other parties are being killed off and pushed out because people are saying, ‘Come on, we’re not going to go that far,'” Biden said, according to a source. (The remarks were first reported by The New York Times.)
But the French vote was not as simple as the story Biden told. The election was as much a rejection of French President Emmanuel Macron and his centrist coalition as it was a rejection of the far right. It was the latest in a trend that is ricocheting around the world and that experts say should deeply worry Biden: Voters dissatisfied with the post-COVID economy and, in some cases, angry about the influx of immigrants, are dealing incumbents one setback after another at the ballot box.
And while Biden is facing intense political backlash following his disastrous performance in last month’s debate, polls show American voters are expressing similar dissatisfaction with the status quo, which has helped former President Donald Trump build a slim polling lead nationally and in battleground states.
“This is a bad time for incumbents,” said Ian Bremmer, president and founder of geopolitical risk firm Eurasia Group, adding that voters around the world are looking for change. “No matter what you think of Biden’s record and how much you think he’s accomplished, this is a tough time for an incumbent to win.”
In France, Macron’s Ensemble coalition won far fewer seats than it did in 2022, finishing second to the left-leaning New Popular Front. The National Rally won its highest number of seats and most votes ever, a point Trump was quick to highlight on his Truth Social page on Monday. (Still, strategic voting from the center-left meant the National Rally only came in third in actual seat counts.)
A few days ago, across the English Channel, voters ousted the Conservatives from power for the first time in 14 years, giving the center-left Labour Party a landslide victory. In both cases, deep dissatisfaction with the incumbents led to sweeping change.
Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, said these races and the recent elections in India and South Africa “are warning signs that incumbent Joe Biden is extremely vulnerable at a time of growing discontent, which may lead many to stay put or vote for Donald Trump.”
“The ‘age’ issue only makes a bad situation worse for Biden,” Haass added.
Biden supporters who spoke to NBC News said the U.S. has differentiators that make them more positive.
First, the US economy is doing better than those of Western European countries, even though many Americans have expressed similar dissatisfaction. Biden supporters expect that as the economy continues its post-COVID recovery, sentiment will also improve ahead of November. Moreover, Trump, a former president who evoked deep emotions in American voters, is not a blank slate or a relatively unknown challenger like other incumbent presidents have faced. Differences in electoral and political systems cannot be ignored.
“People are looking for signs that back up what they’re trying to report,” said David McGonigal, vice president of National Security Action, a group that seeks to advance Biden’s foreign policy. “People want to give up on a Democratic victory in November and say that elections overseas are bad news for Biden’s chances of winning in November. This is at least one piece of evidence to the contrary.”
Bremmer said the anti-incumbent momentum was strong enough that if Biden dropped out of the race, voters would likely align the two, potentially ripping not just Biden but any potential successors as well. At the same time, he said the United States “is likely to be an exception” to this trend because of deep political divisions.
“There are very few seats and votes at stake,” Bremmer said, “and Trump is almost uniquely unpopular as an outsider.”
Amid a wave of anti-government sentiment, the international right has been accumulating new influence. The Reform UK Party, led by Nigel Farage, a right-wing darling and ally of President Trump, won about 14% of the vote in Britain, winning seats in Parliament for the first time. Last month’s European Parliament elections saw the far-right AfD party make big gains in Germany, as did the National Rally, prompting Macron to rush to hold national elections.
Meanwhile, right-wing parties across Europe are trying to form a coalition government that, if formally approved by the European Parliament, would give them greater influence in the institution.
“The tide is rising,” Marine Le Pen, the longtime leader of the National Rally, said after France’s vote on Sunday. “This time the tide did not rise high enough, but it is still rising. As a result, the reality is that our victory is only being delayed.”
Macron’s call for early elections following his party’s success in the European Parliament elections is a gamble that French voters will not want to hand power to an unproven, staunchly anti-immigration right-wing party with the Olympics looming.
The Rally National’s momentum was thwarted when left-wing and center-wing candidates across the country set aside their differences and appealed for unity against the far right — a long-standing French practice known as the “cordillera.” Many candidates withdrew from the three-way race, giving their left-wing or center-wing opponents a wide berth to keep right-wing candidates at bay.
But Macron’s group lost 76 seats and finished third in the popular vote, making it clear that even if voters did not want the Rally National to power, they had little interest in maintaining the status quo.
“This vote means that whether you’re on the right or the left, [people] “They were very strongly opposed to the establishment,” said Alexandre Pessey, founder and executive director of the Institute for Political Formation, a conservative training institute in Paris.
Gerard Araude, a former French ambassador to the United States, said the political realities in France and the United States were “strikingly” similar.
“This is the equivalent of a rebellion of 35 percent of the population simply saying, ‘I want to turn the table over. We can’t have a seat at the table anymore,'” Araud said. “The thing is, we as the elite shouldn’t really hate these people. They feel our contempt. And in a way, they rejoice in our anger and our sadness. All our indignation delights them. So in a way, we should listen to them.”
Both Macron and Biden have pursued changes to immigration policy, but they have not been as drastic as critics on the right have argued. Their actions have had little impact on the issue. Aloud pointed to other policy initiatives and said Biden and his administration have sought to address the concerns of disgruntled people.
“The problem is, the Biden administration is trying to address their concerns with the Reindustrialization and Inflation Control Act,” Araud said. “Apparently, it doesn’t work.”
