The dirty little secret of Joe Biden and 2024
He's *very* vulnerable.
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With Donald Trump doing his usual scenery-chewing act over the last few months, you probably missed this: Joe Biden is deeply vulnerable even as he appears to be gearing up to run for president again in 2024.
The signs are everywhere:
A new CNN poll shows that just 32% of the public thinks Biden deserves to be reelected while 67% say he does not deserve a 2nd term. Those numbers are worse than where Trump stood in September 2019 CNN polling. At that time, 36% said Trump deserved to be reelected while 60% said he did not.
Biden’s job approval numbers remain decidedly mediocre. Gallup’s March poll showed Biden approval at 40% — again roughly similar to the 43% approval Trump had at a similar time in his term. A new Pew poll pegs Biden’s job approval at a meager 37%. Biden’s average job approval is 44% in the Real Clear Politics polling average.
Biden’s approval on the economy — widely regarded as the #1 issue for voters — is even worse than his overall approval numbers. In the CNN poll, just 37% approved of how Biden is handling the economy. (The CNN poll had Biden’s approval at 42%.)
A majority of Democrats in the CNN poll (54%) said they would prefer someone other than Biden as the nominee. This is not a one-off finding; the data has been consistent over time — Democrats want someone other than Biden as their nominee. It’s also a break from recent history. In October 2010, 83% of Democrats said they wanted Barack Obama to run again. 83%!
Add it all up and it’s looks really, really bad for Biden.
Then there is the fact that Biden still isn’t actually made clear he will run again — and there is talk that he may postpone his official announcement for months.
As Axios reported earlier this month:
President Biden's advisers and close allies don't expect him to announce a run for re-election any time soon — and some now believe it could come as late as July, or perhaps even the fall.
Biden's waiting game has left many ambitious Democrats and would-be staffers with their 2024 plans on hold. They initially thought Biden would launch a campaign soon after the Christmas break, after talking with his family.
Biden and his allies see the delay as a strategic decision made from a position of strength: He can continue to look and act presidential while Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and the rest of the Republican field engage in a nasty fight for the Republican nomination.
But, what if it isn’t? There’s no indication in the numbers above — or, really, any numbers I could find — that suggests Biden is prospering in the role of president right now.
The Biden argument — when confronted with meh poll numbers — has long been that they would improve as the legislation he signed into law over the first few years of his presidency seeped out into the public. That once he and his administration explained to people what he had done, they would come around on him.
That, well, hasn’t happened. At least not yet.
And, with Biden’s numbers being what they are — aka not good — the lack of certainty on when or if he will run in 2024 isn’t helping matters.1
Why aren’t we talking more about how vulnerable Biden looks? The answer — as it is to so many political questions — is Trump.
And it’s “Trump” in two distinct ways:
Trump dominates news cycles. This has been especially true over the last few weeks as his indictment and arrest have come into view. In the words of Trump himself: “The show is Trump and it’s sold-out performances everywhere.”
Given how the media continues to cover (and cover) Trump, there’s very little room for anyone else — up to and including the current president of the United States — to get much attention.
That’s not to say all the headlines Trump gets are good for him. They’re not. It’s just that there are so, so many headlines, it blots out the sun for other politicians.
Trump is uniquely weak in a general election. There are two things that, to my mind, are indisputably true: a) Trump is the VERY likely Republican nominee in 2024 and b) he is the weakest person Republican could put forward for president.
This week’s arrest — regardless of the final outcome of the trial (if there is even a trial) — is likely to cement voters’ views about him. And when it comes to electorally-critical independents, they had already soured on Trump — bigly. It’s very hard to see how Trump can change those perceptions.
That second point is, I think, why Democrats aren’t publicly (or privately) panicking about Biden’s current standing. There’s a sort of inherent belief that no matter how Biden’s numbers look, the likelihood of him facing Trump again in the general election makes everything alright.
Undergirding that belief is another one: That Trump can’t possibly win again. That after his presidency, his role in January 6 and his continued breaking of norms and pushing of boundaries that the American public will simply never choose him to run the country again.
Which I am not so sure about. As I noted above, I do think Trump is the weakest person Republicans could nominate in 2024. But that’s not at all the same as saying that he couldn’t win if he did wind up as the nominee. 2
Especially when you consider where Biden stands with the electorate. It’s not as though Trump is facing down Barack Obama at the height of his powers. Biden is significantly diminished in the eyes of voters — someone who even Democrats would prefer be swapped out in 2024.
That reality has yet to sink in for the general public. But the numbers don’t lie: Biden is in a very unenviable spot as he prepares to seek as 2nd term whether or not he faces Trump next November.
To be clear: I think Biden DOES run again. But the longer questions linger, the worse for the doubts already coursing through the electorate about him.
What this news demonstrates is that the average white American shouldn't be allowed outside without adult supervision, that most of them are born with their heads up their ass, and that the other hairless biped species, Homo Sap, the one lacking frontal lobes and opposable thumbs, is more prevalent than thought (too bad Covid isn't more lethal than it i; now that we're plumb out of sabretooth cats to dine on the morons, we're in desperate need of some way to kick start evolution back into existence).
Other questions to address: If Biden doesn't run (because of law poll numbers), what's the alternative? An incumbent president (outside of Hoover, Ford, Carter and Trump) is infinitely stronger than most challengers, especially when he's got some accomplishments (lowering price on insulin, for one). And who would challenge him?