The New Yorker:

The President’s feel-good tour offers a stark contrast to his predecessor’s summer of conspiracies and criminal indictments. But will it work?

By Susan B. Glasser

Joe Biden has been embracing August: a relaxed beach day in his beloved Delaware, riding bikes and taking a moonlit stroll on the sand with the First Lady; and a trip out West to the Grand Canyon for an in-person signing of an order creating a new national monument, summer casual in a baseball cap, shades, and no tie. He even gave an interview to the Weather Channel about all the crazy summer weather and climate change—“the existential threat to humanity,” as he described it—though he declined to outright declare a national emergency. (Fox News coverage—no parody—was headlined “Biden avoids Hunter Biden scandal in sit-down interview with The Weather Channel.”)

The vacation vibe, though, came with an urgent political mission: revive his poll numbers before it’s too late. As the 2024 campaign begins in earnest, Biden has the lowest average approval ratings of any President since Jimmy Carter: 40.3 per cent approve, 54.8 per cent disapprove. Even Donald Trump, as hard as it is to believe, had slightly higher ratings at this point in his term. Other indicators—both economic and political—have been looking better for the President in recent months: low unemployment, easing inflation, better-than-expected performances in off-year elections, such as the win this week by abortion-rights advocates on a referendum in red Ohio. Economists and businesses began the year planning for recession; now they are talking of a “soft landing.” Past Presidents who sought reëlection under such circumstances—think Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama—tended to fare well in recent decades.

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