Biden 'approval' in the tank
Currently, next year’s presidential race looks more like 2016’s than 2020’s. Even though it appears likely that President Joe Biden will face off against former President Donald Trump in a rematch, 2024 stands to be more of a rehash — only this time without Hillary.
After dramatically improving the Democrats’ results from years before, Biden has dug himself into a Hillary Clinton-sized pit in just three years. His record-low approval ratings among even Democratic primary voters leave his party with two questions: Are Democrats preparing for the right race? And can Biden dig himself out?
In 2020, Biden won 51.3% of the popular vote and 306 electoral votes. Though his margin in each of the five pivotal states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania) was less than 3 percentage points in terms of their popular votes, Biden’s results were a significant improvement over Clinton’s 2016 presidential performance.
Three years later, Biden’s numbers look very different. According to the RealClearPolitics average of national polling, Biden’s net approval rating is a negative 13.7%. The latest Gallup poll shows that the Democrats’ approval rating of Biden fell by 11 points last month to a historic low. Among independents, just 35% say they approve of Biden.
In RCP’s national average of polling on a hypothetical Biden-Trump rematch, Biden trails by 0.7 of a point: 44.1% to Trump’s 44.8%. Even at his peak in March of this year, Biden led Trump by only 45.5% to 44.2% — well below his 4.4-point margin in 2020.
Biden’s numbers now resemble Hillary’s from 2016.
In 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Trump in the popular vote by a 2.1-point margin, 48% to 45.9%. However, the five swing states (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania) that Biden won narrowly in 2020, Hillary lost narrowly in 2016. As a result, Clinton lost where it counted in the electoral vote, 232 to 306.
A closer look at today’s national polling numbers makes the similarity to 2016 even clearer. A recent series of state polling by Bloomberg-Morning Consult, for example, shows Biden now trailing Trump in four of the five swing states he won in 2020 (Arizona, Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) and tied in Michigan. In Arizona, Trump leads by 4 points, Trump leads by 5 points in Georgia, Trump leads by 1 point in Pennsylvania, and in Wisconsin, Trump leads by 2 points. If Trump holds the states he won in 2020 and holds these polling leads in these four states, he will win the presidency — regardless of what happens in the national popular vote.
What’s more, Trump’s polling margins in those states is almost identical to the popular vote margins he won there in 2016: 3.5 points in Arizona, 5.1 points in Georgia, 0.7 of a point in Pennsylvania, and 0.7 of a point in Wisconsin. All were close then and all are close now. And as both 2016 and 2020 prove, close still counts.
In effect, Biden has “Hillary’ed” himself. In three years, he has done what it took Hillary Clinton a quarter of a century to accomplish: He has made himself one of the most unpopular Democratic politicians in history.
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I am surprised it is that close. Biden has been a disastrous president on several fronts. His economic policies have created inflation and something approaching a recession from many Americans and his foreign policies have led to wars in Europe and the Middle East. The US is still feeling the impact of his inflationary policies whether it is at the grocery store or buying a new auto. Biden won in 2016 with the help of Democrats and media demonization of Trump that was not only unfair but just flat wrong including the Russian collusion hoax. This time around they are trying to defeat Trump with bogus criminal charges.
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