Much has been made of a recent spat of polling from CNN that found Democrats getting weary of Joe Biden’s chances in 2024. They think he’s either too old, which perhaps is ageist, or that he’s too incompetent, which is accurate, or both.
However, other data points in the most recent CNN numbers might be pointing to a nightmare scenario for Democrats similar to the circumstances surrounding Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016. In short, 2024 is shaping up to look more like a re-run than you might think.
As CNN’s Harry Enten explains, Biden and Trump are both unlikeable, but one is more unlikeable than the other:
President Joe Biden continues to be plagued by approval ratings well below 50%. Under normal circumstances, that might be worrying for an incumbent heading into his reelection year. But Biden likes to rely on a common refrain: “Don’t compare me to the Almighty, compare me to the alternative.”
In other words, Biden may not be the most likable guy, yet voters will prefer him to whomever Republicans put up.
There’s just one problem with Biden’s thinking: The polling shows he could be fundamentally wrong and it could cost him the election next year.
According to Enten’s analysis, it’s the small slice in the middle that will end up deciding the election. The anti-Trump vote is locked for Biden and the anti-Biden vote is locked for Trump. However, the anti-everyone vote is still up for grabs, and therein lies the problem for Biden:
This means the election will come down to the 29% of voters (according to our poll) who hold a favorable view of neither Biden nor Trump. (Note that this 29% includes the 9% of voters who hold an undecided view of at least one of the two men; when we concentrate on the 20% who hold an unfavorable view of both – sometimes called “double haters” – all of the following analysis still holds.)
If either of these large percentages (20% or 29%) sounds familiar, it’s because we had a similar dynamic in 2016, when nearly 20% of voters liked neither Democrat Hillary Clinton nor Trump. Trump won that group by 17 points – and with it, the election.
Earlier this year, Biden seemed to hold a small lead over Trump among voters who did not hold a favorable view of him or of his likely GOP opponent.
But in our latest poll, Trump leads Biden by 7 points among the 29% of voters who view neither of them favorably. Significantly, a large chunk of this group (21%) said they either won’t vote or will vote for someone else in a Trump-Biden matchup.
In 2024, Biden may be on the losing end given his terrible record in the Oval Office during his first term. Voters see him as less and less able to carry out the duties of the presidency and less in touch with the reality of everyday average voters. There are his economic woes to his failures in Afghanistan, Biden has been heading in the wrong direction for a while now.
On the flip side, Donald Trump, despite concerns about his age, seems much more attuned to the realities of life under the Biden administration and, quite frankly, mentally able to handle the tasks set before him as Commander in Chief.
If a swath of voters dislikes both options, some will vote third party, some will write in, and some will simply sit home. Many, however, will hold their nose and choose the lesser of two evils. For months, the Biden campaign was betting that Joe was the lesser, but recent data indicates that it’s possible the tables are turning.
There’s plenty of time for things to change, of course, and the landscape won’t look the same 12 months from now as it does today. Will Joe Biden even be the nominee by September 2024? Will Trump be the nominee on the Republican side?
There’s a lot to unfold but Democrats are starting to read the writing on the wall that hitching their wagon to Joe Biden next year might put them in the electoral ditch.
