In a political context crushed by the dismissal procedure against Donald Trump, the former American vice-president Joe Biden, always favorite, faces a new test Thursday, during the sixth televised debate of the Democratic primary, a month and a half from the first Iowa poll.
Of the fifteen contenders still in the race to win the right to face the Republican President on November 3, 2020, only seven meet the conditions to step onto the platform of Loyola Marymount University, in Los Angeles, where the event will be held at 17 hours (2 a.m., Friday, in Paris).
The campaign has been overshadowed in recent weeks by the procedure in the House of Representatives, controlled by the Democrats, which resulted Wednesday in the indictment of the 45e President of the United States. This vote opens the way to his impeachment trial before the Senate where, supported by the Republican majority, the billionaire should be acquitted.
Joe Biden is one of the central characters in this Ukrainian saga which has brought Donald Trump to be the third American president in history to be charged."Impeached"). He has been the favorite for several months to face him in November 2020, despite the blunders that dot his campaign, doubts about his form and his ability, at 77, to assume the highest positions.
Joe Biden leads the polls
Joe Biden is credited with 27.8% of the voting intentions, according to an average established by the RealClear Politics site. Barack Obama's former number two defends a centrist agenda and promises to return to normality after the tumultuous tenure of Donald Trump, marked by extreme political polarization. It enjoys a high popularity rating among workers and in the African American community.
He published a medical bulletin on Tuesday, in which his doctor judges him " in good health " and "Fit to be president of the United States" and displayed surprising aggressiveness during a tour of Iowa, being angry with a voter who accused her of having " sent " his son in Ukraine to facilitate a "Access" to the president.
Behind Joe Biden, Vermont senator Bernie Sanders (19.7%) and Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren (15%) hunt on the same progressive grounds with programs that are very popular with young people and women, but that scare voters more conservative.
The centrist Pete Buttigieg, the first gay candidate with real chances in the race for the White House, is fourth with 8.6%. But the young mayor of South Bend, Indiana, has known since the end of October a meteoric rise in the polls of Iowa, a key state since he will vote first on February 3. He dominates the polls there, and he also seems well placed in New Hampshire, which will follow just after (February 11).
Even further, businessman Andrew Yang (3.4%), Senator Amy Klobuchar (3.2%) and California billionaire Tom Steyer (1.4%) will try to stay the course.
The debate will also take place in the shadow of Michael Bloomberg (5.1%). The centrist billionaire finances his campaign with his personal fortune and has not fulfilled the condition of having 200,000 individual donors. The former mayor of New York also started very late and focuses on the fifteen states that will vote in early March, including Texas and California.
