By Manzanita Miller
President Biden’s abysmal polling numbers have Democrats and the mainstream media worried about his reelection prospects, but the party appears unwilling to replace him on the ticket.
Politico recently penned a warning to Democrats that Biden’s polling numbers look “grim” compared to those of past presidents who have gone on to win their reelection bids, and the Washington Post griped that his numbers “should not be this low.”
Biden’s approval rating now hovers in the low 40’s – a place occupied by former presidents who have lost their reelection bids. According to FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s average approval rating is at 43%, while his disapproval rating has climbed to 52%. Former presidents Donald Trump and Jimmy Carter who lost their reelection bids polled in the low 40’s at the same points in their presidencies.
While Biden could conceivably climb out of the hole and win reelection in 2024, his unpopularity has many left-wing voters hoping for a new candidate– but the Democratic Party appears little interested in replacing Biden.
It is noteworthy that critical members of the Democratic Party base, such as young people and Hispanics, are among the groups most dissatisfied with Biden and are actively seeking a new Democratic candidate for the 2024 election.
A March Washington Post-ABC News poll shows nearly two-thirds of Americans (62%) would be ‘dissatisfied’ or ‘angry’ if Biden were to run again, while just 7% said they’d be excited.
Even among his own party, less than a third of Democrats and leaners (31%) think Biden should be nominated for the party pick in 2024, while 58% say he shouldn’t.
A recent AP-NORC poll also shows the vast majority of Americans do not want Biden to run again, but the sentiment is strongest with younger voters. By a margin of 85% to 15%, Americans eighteen to twenty-nine say they don’t want Biden to run for president again. Eighty-three percent of voters aged thirty to forty-four don’t want to see Biden run again while 16% do.
According to a recent Monmouth University poll, Biden’s approval rating with 18- to 34-year-olds is deeply negative, with a staggering 35-point deficit. The poll revealed that only 28% of young voters approve of Biden’s performance as president, which is a decline of 31 points from his initial approval rating when he took office.
Biden is also struggling heavily with Independents, a group he won by double digits in 2020 but has been losing ground with since. A recent Fox News poll shows Biden underwater with Independent voters 65% to 35%. The same poll shows Biden underwater with Moderates 51% to 47%. A quarter of self-described liberals disapprove of Biden as well.
There appears to be a growing dissatisfaction among Democrat men in particular, with a full fifth of Democrat men (21%) saying they disapprove of Biden.
Minorities too, show weak support for Biden, with almost half of Hispanics (48%) and nearly a quarter of Blacks (24%) saying they disapprove of the job Biden is doing as president in the Fox poll.
A recent Quinnipiac poll also found just 19% of Hispanics approve of the job Biden is doing as President, and a full 70% disapprove.
Economic issues and foreign policy appear to be driving forces behind Biden’s dwindling support, with voters overall giving him low marks on both. A recent Quinnipiac poll shows only 40% of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, 36% approve of his handling of foreign policy, and just 34% approve of his handling of the economy.
The economy appears to be a major sticking point for Latinos in particular, with an NBC News/Telemundo poll showing Latinos disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy 54% to 41% and disapprove of the cost of living under Biden 60% to 35%.
The same poll found Latinos say 39% to 33% that Biden’s economic policies have hurt more than they have helped and 54% of Latinos say their family income is declining due to rising living expenses.
It would be remiss not to point out that Trump has been gaining support from the same groups Biden is losing with. In the months since he left office Trump has gained double digits with young people, Hispanics, and Black voters.
YouGov polling shows Trump has gained 14 points with Gen Z and 10 points with Millennials since last fall, putting him at a 49% approval with the former and a 46% approval with the latter. The same poll shows the share of Latinos who say Trump should run again is up 14 points since he left office, going from 22% in January 2021 to 36% in March of this year.
And, as Americans for Limited Government Foundation noted last month, economic issues are causing Blacks to abandon Democrats at an alarming rate. YouGov polling shows Trump’s approval rating has nearly doubled with Black voters since he left office, going from 19% in early 2021 to 37% in March of this year. This represents an 18 percentage-point increase in Trump’s favorability with Black voters over the past two years.
This comes at a time when Trump’s indictment appears to be boosting his appeal among his own party. A recent poll from Victory Insights showing Trump with a 15-percentage point lead over DeSantis (47% to 32%), up from trailing DeSantis by ten points last fall. The survey also shows 90% of Florida Republicans believe Trump’s indictment was politically motivated.
In addition, a recent CNN poll also shows just 37% of Americans think Trump broke the law, and 76% think that politics played a role in the decision to indict him. Among Independents an even lower share (just 31%) say they think Trump committed a crime.
In terms of a Trump vs. Biden face-off, the latest YouGov polling shows the two in a direct tie, with each securing 39% of the vote while the rest of the country remains undecided or unwilling to vote. Independents now say they’d support Trump by 7 percentage points, and Biden currently secures Hispanics by just 7 points and Blacks by 43 points, both significantly lower margins than he won them by in 2020.
The Democratic party is out of touch with the priorities of their constituency, and this reflects in their choice to push for Biden to run again despite the majority of Americans – and even Democrats – demanding a replacement.
One reason for Democrats’ Biden-or bust mindset is likely the fact that there does not appear to be a better candidate waiting in the wings, and party insiders think if Biden beat Trump once, he can do it again. However, as Democrats and the mainstream media have vilified Trump, his popularity has only increased among swing voters. Democrats may be disappointed when groups who supported Biden in 2020 – including younger voters, minorities, and independents – find Biden even less palatable this time.
Manzanita Miller is an associate analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
