More than three-quarters of registered voters see the United States moving in the wrong direction. More than two-thirds of independents also now disapprove of the president’s performance, and nearly half disapprove strongly.
Among fellow Democrats his approval rating stands at 70 percent, but even that's a fairly low approval for members of a president's own party, and it's belied by the fact that 64 percent of Democratic voters say they'd prefer a different candidate to run in 2024.
According to the poll not a single demographic in his party prefers Mr. Biden to be the Democratic nominee in 2024. Neither of two essential elements of the Democrat base, African-Americans and young voters, want him to run. African Americans split 43/47 on the issue, and 94% (!) of Democrats under the age of 30 want someone else.
A Civiqs poll is even worse. On that poll the president's overall approval is only 29%, with only 19% of Independents and 36% of Hispanics willing to say that he's done a satisfactory job.
Mr. Biden has managed to anger both the left and the right, for different reasons. His foot-dragging on packing the Supreme Court, doing "something" about abortion rights, pushing the Green agenda, etc. has the left stewing while his Afghanistan debacle, inflation, the border catastrophe and energy policy have outraged the right.
Despite his historically poor performance there is still a glimmer of hope for the Democrats. Remarkably, the NYT/Siena poll shows that Mr. Biden would still defeat Mr. Trump (44%/41%) were the election held today. I wonder if there are many Democrats actually hoping that Mr. Trump will run and win the GOP nomination. He may, after all, be the only GOP candidate against whom they believe they have a chance.
Nevertheless, as The Federalist's David Harsanyi observes:
It’s certainly entertaining watching partisans feign excitement over their mollycoddled candidate holding a 44-41 lead in a national poll against a guy who is accused of sedition on virtually every news channel daily. What do these numbers look like when Trump (or someone like Ron DeSantis) is reminding voters what gas prices and their 401(k)s looked like before Covid?What Mr. Trump will choose to do is yet to be determined, but it's not at all clear what Mr. Biden can do to rescue his presidency, other than reverse course and adopt the policies of his predecessor. Tasting that piece of humble pie, however, is probably out of the question.
Indeed, the left is again convincing themselves that winning a national poll means something. (Siena, incidentally, had Clinton up 17 points in its final 2016 poll.) There is no popular vote.
Biden must win states. And the president is underwater in almost every one of them, on almost every issue, in almost every poll. I’m no prognosticator or election expert — Biden might well win reelection — but none of that could possibly be heartening news for Democrats.
