It’s been a rough week for the Biden administration and it’s only Tuesday. On Monday, a new poll was released by the New York Times in partnership with Siena College and the results are a “hide the children” kind of bad for President Biden’s job approval.
Furthermore, beyond the approval bust, the same poll finds nearly two-thirds of Democrats prefer someone else to run in 2024, citing issues such as “age” and “job performance” as the overriding factors that should disqualify Joe Biden from running for re-election.
The 33% approval number is a new low in this poll and could be an outlier, but it is well in line with others finding Biden’s approval bottoming out to the mid-thirties in recent weeks:
President Biden is facing an alarming level of doubt from inside his own party, with 64 percent of Democratic voters saying they would prefer a new standard-bearer in the 2024 presidential campaign, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll, as voters nationwide have soured on his leadership, giving him a meager 33 percent job-approval rating.
Widespread concerns about the economy and inflation have helped turn the national mood decidedly dark, both on Mr. Biden and the trajectory of the nation. More than three-quarters of registered voters see the United States moving in the wrong direction, a pervasive sense of pessimism that spans every corner of the country, every age range and racial group, cities, suburbs and rural areas, as well as both political parties.
That’s just a messaging problem, right? Americans in all demographic groups overwhelmingly say the country is headed down the “wrong track” but the White House still thinks if it comes up with a better catchphrase, somehow it can bring them all back.
The approval number is one thing, but the larger issue for Biden’s laughable insistence that he’s running for re-election could hit a brick wall within his own party. His time is done in Washington, he’s reached the peak and it’s been a disaster.
So much so, in fact, that there’s an almost a unanimous view among younger Democratic voters that Biden’s time to go is now:
The backlash against Mr. Biden and desire to move in a new direction were particularly acute among younger voters. In the survey, 94 percent of Democrats under the age of 30 said they would prefer a different presidential nominee.
“I’m just going to come out and say it: I want younger blood,” said Nicole Farrier, a 38-year-old preschool teacher in East Tawas, a small town in northern Michigan. “I am so tired of all old people running our country. I don’t want someone knocking on death’s door.”
There is something to be said about having leaders less disconnected from the ins and outs of what families with children or college-aged kids are dealing with. Experience counts, yes, unless that experience, as in Biden’s case, has proven to often be wrong or incorrect.
What counts and what Biden has completely lost since the 2020 campaign is any semblance that he can empathize with voters. Instead, his constant deployment of the sense that things are indeed bad, but if we all just hold on and stop complaining, they’ll eventually be better.
That message from the President is probably the most condescending and infuriating for families dealing with gas prices, grocery prices, college tuition, healthcare costs, and every other demand.
If the “job performance” wasn’t so abysmal, I think the “age” reason would be less impactful.
There’s no path forward for Biden in 2024 even within his own party. Why would there be, frankly? He has proven time and time again to be unable to handle the job put in front of him, the job that he sought since 1988.
Perhaps if Biden announced before the midterms that he would stand down in 2024, Democrats would have a better chance in November of not going down in flames.
