The sitting president has yet to announce that he’s running for re-election, but when he does, he’ll be met with a stagnant approval rating and an even lower approval rating for his sitting vice president.
While news of former President Donald Trump’s impending arrest in New York City this week has dominated a lot of the political landscape, it’s worth noting that the issue will likely end up being old news in a month. Even if the issue turns into a conviction, the house of cards it’s built on would likely not survive an appeal meaning the issue is entirely a political stunt.
Setting that issue aside, how about the job performance of Joe Biden? He was said to be riding high after the midterms when his aloofness was saved by young, mostly female voters eager to register their desire for unfettered, unencumbered abortion access in the wake of the Dobbs ruling.
As it stands today, Biden’s looking at a tepid 41% approval, an embarrassing number for a guy considering an upcoming re-election campaign:
A new poll from Monmouth University finds a stagnant job approval rating for President Joe Biden and a low approval rating for Vice President Kamala Harris, although both still have high marks among Democrats.
The survey, released Tuesday, finds 41% of Americans approve of Biden’s job as president, while 51% disapprove, which is only a slight dip from Biden’s 43% approval rating in January (though the change is well within the poll’s margin of error). Just over a third of those surveyed — 36% — approve of Harris’ job as vice president, while 53% disapprove.
But wait, NBC News says, Democrats still like him! Well, fine, but Democrats won’t win him the states he needs to win if he’s lost independents and any chance of picking up some moderate Republicans.
On a more granular level, Biden has fallen a bit among voters in the state of Iowa as well:
The percentage of Iowans who approve of Democratic President Joe Biden’s job performance has fallen slightly since last year, a new Des Moines Register Mediacom Iowa Poll shows.
At the same time, a strong majority of Iowans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, including a plurality of Democrats.
Now, 30% of Iowans say they approve of Biden’s job performance — down from 35% in October 2022 and just above his lowest Iowa Poll showing as president, 27% in July 2022.
It’s a sign of Biden as the “meh” President. His leadership is nonexistent in crisis after crisis, his speeches are uninspiring, his rhetoric is divisive, and his general out-of-touch tone leaves much to be desired from the Oval Office. There isn’t much to really love or hate about Biden.
Even if one is offended by his decision to paint his opponents as racist white supremacists because they disagree with him, one has to consider the source and hold back the laughter.
Back to Biden’s approval polls. Why is it that voters don’t like him? Well, for starters, Biden’s list of accomplishments is rather short:
Independent Iowans are also dissatisfied with the president, with 64% saying they disapprove of Biden’s performance and 29% saying they approve. Another 7% are not sure.
“I just feel like there hasn’t really been much action taken, and any action that has been taken isn’t really what he promised when he was running his campaign,” said poll respondent Noah Hensley, a 22-year-old Iowa City resident. “I voted for him, personally. And I don’t know if I would want to vote for him again in the next election. … I don’t feel like there’s been much change since he’s taken over.”
Hensley, who is a registered independent but tends to vote for Democrats, said he’s particularly frustrated that Biden’s campaign promise to make community colleges tuition-free has failed to come to fruition, and the president’s student-loan forgiveness plan has stalled in the courts.
Wait, you mean the guy who has been in Washington for the past five decades wasn’t the scorching agent of change you expected him to be? Shocking!
Biden was a mediocre Senator and a check-the-box choice as a Vice President. He stumbled his way to the presidency on the back of Covid, blanket ballot harvesting, and a mountain of help from his friends in the media and Silicon Valley.
At best, Joe Biden has been underwhelming in the White House. At worst, which is the universe we’re living in, he’s made one mistake after another sending America into spiraling inflation and foreign entanglements.
If Biden does announce a re-election campaign in 2024, he won’t have Covid or his basement strategy to run cover for his deficiencies this time.
