“We’ve got to get it done, not because of me… If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running. We cannot let him win.”
That was President Joe Biden at a fundraiser on Dec. 5 telling Democratic Party donors that he, and only he, can defeat former President Donald Trump in the presidential election in 2024.
In doing so, Biden tacitly acknowledged the weakness of his own campaign, saying apparently the only reason he’s running for president again is because Trump is running again, making stopping Trump the central theme of his campaign rather than his accomplishments.
Further, it emphasizes the fact that many Democrats are calling for Biden to step aside — to be replaced by, say, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-Calif.) or Vice President Kamala Harris — on account of both his dismal approval ratings and his age as he just turned 81.
On the polls, Trump now is now consistently ahead of Biden in the race, with Trump leading Biden 46.6 percent to 44.5 percent, according to the latest average of national polls compiled by RealClearPolitics.com.
One recent poll is the Messenger-HarrisX poll taken Nov. 27 to Dec. 1, which found Trump ahead of Biden in a head-to-head matchup by as much as 6 points, 53 percent to 47 percent.
What’s remarkable in the poll is Trump appears to be leading almost every single age demographic: among 18- to 34-year-olds, Trump leads 56 percent to 44 percent, among 35- to 49-year-olds, Trump is ahead 52 percent to 48 percent, Trump and Biden are tied 50 percent to 50 percent among 50- to 64-year-olds, and Trump is ahead among 65-year-olds and older 56 percent to 44 percent.
The gender gap is also quite telling, with Trump leading among men 57 percent to 43 percent, and is actually tied with Biden among women, 50 percent to 50 percent.
Similarly, Trump is doing very well on the racial breakdown, leading Biden 58 percent to 42 percent among Whites and garnering 38 percent of Blacks to Biden’s 62 percent and getting 44 percent of Hispanics to Biden’s 56 percent.
Trump also leads among independents by 10 points, 55 percent to 45, and picks up more Democrats than Biden picks up Republicans, with Trump picking up 13 percent of Democrats and Biden only garnering 7 percent of Republicans.
Finally, in the same poll, Biden has a net approval rating of just 38 percent, while a whopping 56 percent disapprove.
As voter attitudes settle in with less than a month until 2024 starts, these numbers are simply catastrophic for President Biden.
And yet, Biden is making the case that he is still Democrats’ best shot of winning. That is likely because in modern history, when presidents like Harry Truman in 1952 and Lyndon Johnson in 1968 stepped aside and did not seek another term in office, the incumbent party lost. Whereas, at least when presidents do seek another term, they tend to win about two-thirds of the time.
Biden might also wish to cite Truman’s 1948 come from behind victory over Thomas Dewey as the rare example where the polls were wrong, or even Trump’s better than expected showing if the polls were being considered in 2020, when Biden barely beat Trump by a scant 43,000 votes in Georgia (10,000), Arizona (10,000) and Wisconsin (23,000), which if they had gone the other way, the Electoral College would have been tied 269 to 269 and sent the election to the House of Representatives.
The matter of potentially replacing Biden might have already been settled, especially after California Gov. Newsom addressed it nationally in a Fox News televised debate on Nov. 30 with Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), stating “Neither of us will be the nominee for our party in 2024.”
That threw cold water on calls from within the Democratic Party for Biden to be replaced by Newsom atop the Democratic ticket in 2024.
That is, until Biden brought the matter back to life by clearly stating “I’m not sure I’d be running” if Trump wasn’t in the race, calling into question whether Biden even has the motivation, capability and will to server as president for another four years. And yet, as dismal as Biden’s current prospects appear, he might be right, that he’s the only Democrat with a solid chance to win in 2024 against Trump. We’ll see. As usual, stay tuned.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.
