WASHINGTON — In a nutshell, President Biden’s argument for running for a second term rather than ceding his seat to the next generation is that he is the Democrat most likely to defeat former President Donald J. Trump next year.
But a prominent new poll challenged that case in a way that made much of the capital buzz in the past few days. At face value, the poll shows Mr Biden six percentage points behind Mr Trump in a theoretical rematch, raising questions about whether the president is in as good a position as he maintains.
No poll has as much significance, especially so early in the election cycle, and presidential strategists as well as some independent analysts have questioned his approach. It. But even if that is an outlier, other recent surveys have shown that the race is well-balanced, with Mr Biden or Mr Trump holding a tight lead in the margin of error. Taken together, they argue that the 2024 president faces huge challenges with no guarantee of victory over Mr. Trump.
The data has left many Democrats feeling nervous to anxious. In their view, Mr. Biden’s case for being a safe couple in tumultuous times would be ruined if a president passed key legislation and led the lowest unemployment rate in years. generation cannot outshine a twice impeached challenger who has instigated a rebellion, has been indicted on multiple felony counts, is on civil trial on rape charges and could face with more criminal charges in the coming months.
“The poll shows the president still has a lot of work to do, not just convince the American people that he’s ready for the job he’s ready for,” said Donna Brazile, former chair of the Democratic National Committee. He wants to finish.” about “ominous signs” in the latest survey results. “More importantly, it’s a good foreshadowing of the challenges he will face in rebuilding the remarkable coalition that elected him in 2020.”
“I don’t think they should panic because you can’t panic after a poll,” said Ms. Brazile, who ran Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign. voting booth. “But it’s an important measure of voter standing today, about 547 days away from the November 2024 election.”
The survey by The Washington Post and ABC News found that the president’s approval rating has dropped to 36% and that Mr. Trump would beat him between 44% and 38% if the election were held today. It’s also worrying Democrats, who said Trump, 76, is physically and mentally healthier than Mr. Biden, 80, and concluded that the former president manages manage the economy better than the incumbent.
Critics of the poll decried it because it included all adults in the 1,006 sample, rather than just registered voters, and argued that its results were among subgroups such as young adults, adults, and older adults. Independents, Hispanics, and black Americans are simply not to be trusted.
“The poll is really trash, and I don’t say it lightly because I respect their poll in the past,” said Cornell Belcher, who once polled President Barack Obama, speak. “However, their methodological decision here is questionable,” he added about how the survey was constructed.
Others warn against over-analyzing data so soon, noting that anything can happen in the next 18 months and reiterating that poll-based forecasts — or poll misinterpretation — has proven to be a poor predictor in recent cycles, including the 2022 midterm elections when the “red wave” forecast failed to materialize real.
“The May 2024 polls will be of questionable value,” said David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign manager. “The May 2023 polls are worth about the same as Theranos stock.”
The White House has expressed no interest in the latest investigations. Andrew Bates, a spokesman for the White House, said: “President Biden’s average job approval rate is now higher than it was in early November when the report was based on a priori poll. Widespread speculation of a red wave was supposed to be inevitable but never came.
Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for Biden’s fledgling campaign, said the president would win on issues like prescription drug discounts and Social Security protections. “Americans voted for Joe Biden’s America in 2020 and 2022, and no matter what Beltway insiders say today, they will vote again in 2024,” he said.
While not predictive, recent surveys provide a baseline as to the start of a likely race between two well-known figures, heralding a campaign with no leader. clear. Vote by yahoo news, The Wall Street Journal And Morning consultation found the president to be slightly ahead while surveys by The Economist and Harvard University Center for American Political Studies find him bound or followed by a score. Mr. Biden faces similarly divergent results against Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, the strongest challenger to Mr. Trump for the Republican nomination.
The results point to a calcification in American politics, where leaders of both parties have a similar core base of support among voters who are not open to the other side regardless of development. news development. The days when presidents could score above 50 percent or double-digit lead over challengers for any extended period of time seem long gone. And so, without widespread support, the challenge for Mr. Biden is to regroup the coalition that gave him a 4.5 percentage point victory nearly three years ago.
Mr. Biden has dismissed the importance of the polls, saying he is no different from other presidents on this point during their tenure. He told Stephanie Ruhle on MSNBC’s “11th Hour” on Friday: “Every major candidate has won re-election, their votes are equal to mine right now.
But in reality, only two of the past 13 presidents have a lower approval rating than Biden at this point, according to aggregated by FiveThirtyEight.com – Mr. Trump and Jimmy Carter, both lost the re-election. More encouraging for Mr. Biden is the example of Ronald Reagan, who is only one-tenth behind the incumbent president at this stage of his presidency, but has come back to win the election. re-elected landslide in 1984.
Whit Ayres, a Republican consultant, said they were saying Mr Biden was essentially tied to or behind “a former president carrying more luggage than a loaded 747” and warned against Democrats should not be complacent.
“Democrats deny it if they think Biden can’t lose to Trump in 2024,” he said. “Trump can definitely win. Joe Biden is asking the country to elect an 82-year-old candidate who has clearly lost a step, running for a vice president that hardly anyone in either party thinks is ready to run.
The Post-ABC poll and other polls also contain bad news for Republicans. While Mr. Trump leads or holds roughly the same level as the president, analysts say, he may have a ceiling he can’t pass, which Biden can still win over. independents with conflicting attitudes who don’t like the former president.
“While the poll isn’t great news for Biden, it’s not great news for Republicans either,” said Anna Greenberg, a Democratic pollster. “Only about a third say they are strong supporters of Biden, DeSantis and Trump. It feels more unsettling than anything else.
She said the real choice between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, if it happened, would force conflicting Democrats and independents to cross the line. “I find the Democrats softer, but I’m sure that whatever skepticism Democrats tell pollsters right now, they’re going to be a bit more cynical,” she said. will vote for Joe Biden.
Stuart Stevens, who ran Mitt Romney’s campaign against Obama in 2012 and was a vocal critic of Mr. Trump, noted that Republican leadership was concerned that the former president could not win even if he leading in some polls. “We seem to be in this strange moment where Republican elites panic that Trump can’t beat Biden,” he said. “I think it’s because they know that Trump is deeply flawed.”
David Axelrod, a former senior Obama adviser who is on the other side of the race with Mr. Stevens, agrees with his assessment. “What Biden has that no one else has is his record of beating Trump, which heavily affects conversations among Democrats about the race,” Axelrod said. “He also has a track record to go on and is a party that falls outside the mainstream on several key issues to be countered, with a bleak leader.”
Axelrod added: “The worry for Democrats is that re-election depends on so many variables that Biden cannot fully control — including his own health and aging process. he”. “Any failure would exacerbate public concerns already evident in the polls about his condition and his ability to endure another four years.”
