Joe Biden’s weakness against the twice-impeached and four-times-indicted Donald Trump has Democrats running scared. Indictments ordinarily would be the kiss of death. Trump’s teflon continues to work political magic.
The Wall Street Journal’s most recent survey of 1,500 voters finds that only 42% of voters approve of Biden’s job performance as president. Fifty-seven percent disapprove of Biden’s performance.
In contrast, 48% approve and 51% disapprove of his predecessor. Biden’s net approval rating is minus 15 compared with minus 3 for Trump.
The RealClearPolitics Average shows that Biden’s approval has not ersted above 50% since August 2021. The last three one-term presidents, Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Trump were below 50% when they lost re-election. Carter and Bush lost because of the economy, and Biden’s failure to get consumer prices under control could cost him just like it cost Carter against Reagan. Trump is not Reagan, but the person who wins in 2024 will be the person who is the least unpopular.
Bidenomics Hurting Joe Biden
In 2020, voters hated Trump and voted in droves for Joe Biden. Nearly four years later, voters have seen the cost of rent, food, and fuel significantly higher than when Trump was in office. They also see that Biden looks frail and likely is corrupt and are turned off by the entire prospect of a rematch.
“I’ll say the elephant in the room,” Minyon Moore, chairwoman of the 2024 Democratic convention, said last week in a private phone call discussing the event with party fundraisers. “People talk about his age. But you know what? I come from a family where age is wisdom, knowledge, participation, and experience.
“I would rather have Joe Biden on this field, at this time, than any president.”
Voter enthusiasm wins elections. Biden doesn’t have it. Having Biden on the Democratic ticket could depress voter turnout. That could increase the likelihood that Trump becomes the first former president defeated for re-election to come back and win a non-consecutive term since Grover Cleveland in 1892.
An NBC News poll in April found that more than half of registered Democrats prefer someone other than Biden as their party’s standard bearer.
Only 17% of voters told pollsters in The Wall Street Journal poll that they “strongly approve” of Biden’s performance in office and 32% said the same of Trump’s performance when he was president.
Black Voters Unenthusiastic About Biden
Democrats see warning signs among Black voters, who are not as enthusiastic about Biden as they were in the past.
“The Democratic Party has been failing epically at reaching this demographic of Black men — and that’s sad to say,” W. Mondale Robinson, founder of the Black Male Voter Project, told The Washington Post. “Black men are your second-most stable base overwhelmingly, and yet you can’t reach them in a way that makes your work easier.”
Poorer minorities have been hard hit by Bidenomics, as they have seen the costs of basic goods rise. This could cause them to stay home next year and leave Biden in a difficult situation.
“I’m definitely not happy with where America was when Trump was president. And I’m not happy with where America is, now that Biden’s president,” an unidentified Black voter from Cleveland who said he remains a registered Democrat told Politico. “We’ve already had years of both of them being president and with no kind of good results. So I’m hoping there’s some other you know, candidate or alternative besides these two.”
Democrats could start looking at pushing Biden aside and nominating someone like former First Lady Michelle Obama if the trend continues.
John Rossomando is a defense and counterterrorism analyst and served as Senior Analyst for Counterterrorism at The Investigative Project on Terrorism for eight years. His work has been featured in numerous publications such as The American Thinker, The National Interest, National Review Online, Daily Wire, Red Alert Politics, CNSNews.com, The Daily Caller, Human Events, Newsmax, The American Spectator, TownHall.com, and Crisis Magazine. He also served as senior managing editor of The Bulletin, a 100,000-circulation daily newspaper in Philadelphia, and received the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors first-place award for his reporting.
