President Joe Biden recently forged a unified NATO position on ultimate membership for Ukraine and continued military help abroad. At home, inflation fell to the lowest level in more than two years, outpaced by wage gains.
A new poll showed him leading his two most likely Republican rivals. And the House GOP barely survived a legislative train wreck by passing a defense bill laden with unpopular social policy riders.
It was a good week for Biden. But three factors could pose the biggest threats to the president’s re-election prospects.
One was vividly illustrated when a pair of political mavericks, West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin and former Utah Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman, staged a New Hampshire event Monday touting a third-party option that polls show would hurt Biden and help the GOP.
The other two are his age — he’ll be almost 82 when Americans vote in 2024 — and the possibility that the Federal Reserve’s efforts to halt inflation may cause an election year recession, something no president wants.