President Joe Biden, seeking reelection against Donald Trump in 2024, is slipping in the polls.
And while polls – taken nine months before the election – should be taken with a sizeable grain of salt, the numbers are not encouraging for the sitting president.
Actually, the numbers raise a set of questions sure to alarm Democratic voters: is Biden the underdog in the 2020 rematch? Is a stubbornly popular Donald Trump threatening to pull away from the incumbent?
Biden has never been a popular president.
Subterranean poll numbers have been plaguing Biden since early in his presidency. Biden has regularly polled in the thirties with respect to approval rating – a historic low that only Trump and Jimmy Carter have matched (neither of which were reelected).
But low approval ratings could be, possibly, attributable to a uniquely partisan and divided populace. That’s no doubt what the Biden administration has been telling itself, at least.
Yet, contemporary polls, which pit Biden against Trump, cannot be explained away with shrugs over partisanship and division.
And now, the polls offer a sampling of the populace during an election year, hinting at how the actual election will unfold. The numbers are concerning to Biden, and liberals at large.
Consider a sampling of recent headlines. ‘Biden is quietly narrowing the race against Trump, but challenges lie ahead,’ The Hill reported. ‘Black, Hispanic and young voters abandon Biden, new poll shows,” USA Today published. ‘Trump narrowly leads Biden in general election,” CNN admitted.
Nine months out, the incumbent Biden does appear to be the underdog.
“Three quarters of voters, including half of Democrats, say they have concerns about President Biden’s mental and physical health,” an NBS News poll found. “That compares with 61% of voters who have concerns about former President Donald Trump’s multiple felony charges and less than half of voters who have concerns about his mental and physical health.”
The NBC poll reflects a hard truth for Democrats – that Americans believe, almost uniformly, that Biden is too old to be president. You may remember that Biden was elected in 2020 as a transitional figure. The expectation was that once defeating Trump, Biden would pass the torch to a younger politician, presumably his vice presidential pick, Kamala Harris. But the handoff never came.
And after much hesitancy, Biden announced his intention to seek reelection – despite rampant concerns that he was too old to seek reelection. Well, Biden is only getting older, and Americans aren’t convinced that their octogenarian incumbent has another five years of governing in the tanks.
“I think that [Biden’s] health and age kind of get in the way of his ability to be a good president of the United States,” one swing-state voter told NBC.
Stubbornly, Democrats have clung to the idea that they can convince voters Biden is fit for the presidency. As the election approaches, and Americans remain unconvinced, Democrats will likely begin to bank, entirely, on the concept that Trump is an abomination and that Biden is the only reasonable choice.
That approach worked well enough in 2020. But Biden is the incumbent now, and he has a record that he’ll need to defend and an economy with his name on it.
And while incumbents are historically favored to win reelection over any challengers, Biden may well be in an underdog position.
Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.
