JOE BIDEN, THE (STILL) UNPOPULAR PRESIDENT. There’s been a lot of wishful reporting about the political fortunes and reelection hopes of President Joe Biden. Look at some of the headlines: “Biden gains on Trump in 6 battleground states.” “Biden-Trump rematch tightens.” “Biden’s polling is improving.” And more. A recent modest uptick in Biden’s polls, which may or may not signal the start of a real change in the presidential race, has excited many commentators.
But remember a fundamental problem for Biden. Most voters do not approve of the job he is doing as president, and they have not approved of it for the last three years. If that does not change by Nov. 5, the president will not win reelection.
Biden’s job approval at this moment is 40.3%, with a disapproval of 56.1%, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls. That is a very, very slight improvement from Biden’s recent lows in job approval this year, 39.2% on March 6 and 39.3% on Jan. 16.
Biden’s problem is that his job approval rating has bounced around in a very limited (and low) range since his first year in the White House. It first dipped into negative territory — that is, with approval lower than disapproval — on Aug. 24, 2021, when he had been in office for seven months. It fell below 45% on Oct. 7, 2021, and it has never risen as high as 45% since.
Biden’s job approval hit a bottom (so far) of 37.1% on July 20, 2022. After recovering to around 44%, it has moved between 40% and 44% ever since, with the exception of a couple of dips into the high 30s.
The conclusion to draw from this is that voters pretty much know what they think about Biden. They made up their minds before he had been in office a year, and they haven’t changed since. It’s not clear whether they will change again in the next few months.
The last three presidents to win reelection, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton, all had job approval ratings in the 40s for some part of their reelection year. All the following numbers are from the Gallup Presidential Job Approval Center: Clinton, who had a very rough early presidency, had the best reelection experience, rising above 50% approval in January 1996 and actually hitting 60% at one point in the campaign. Bush hit a low of 46% in May 2004 but hit 53% by Election Day. And Obama hit an election-year low of 44% in late August but was at 52% by Election Day 2012.
Two things. No. 1, none of those presidents went as low as Biden during their reelection years. And No. 2, all had been at 50% or higher at some point or points during the two years before their reelection. In that sense, all were in better shape approaching reelection than Biden is today.
So what now for Biden? The first possibility is his job approval rating stays where it is or goes down further, and he loses. A second possibility is his approval rating starts to rise late in the campaign, possibly from voters who have decided not to vote for Donald Trump and decide to view Biden more favorably in comparison. In any event, Biden’s approval could climb just enough for him to win reelection.
But if Biden is going to win reelection, something very basic about the public’s view of his performance as president will have to change.
For a deeper dive into many of the topics covered in the Daily Memo, please listen to my podcast, The Byron York Show — available on Radio America and the Ricochet Audio Network and everywhere else podcasts can be found.
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March 27, 2024 at 11:45PM
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Joe Biden, the (still) unpopular president - Washington Examiner
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