W ell, it’s not really Joe Biden’s only problem, since he’s suffered a collapse in his standing generally. But it’s because so few people think he’s doing a good job that he’s in such an incredibly perilous place.
It’s hard to exaggerate how abysmal Biden’s polling has been lately.
No incumbent president should ever want to be near 43 percent in a head-to-head ballot test. Yet here is Joe Biden at 43 percent in the latest CNN poll, 43 percent in the latest Morning Consult poll, 43 percent in the latest Economist/YouGov poll, and 43 percent in the latest Harvard/Harris poll. (NB: Biden ticked up to 48 when Harvard/Harris pushed respondents to choose between Trump and Biden, and the Economist/YouGov poll had RFK Jr. in the mix.)
Detect a trend? (There are other polls that have Biden a little higher.)
It’s no mystery why Biden’s polling is at crisis levels.
An incumbent president’s level of support in a reelection bid is typically tethered closely to his job approval. It’s hard to get much more than a couple of points above it. Biden’s job approval is at 40 percent in the RealClearPolitics polling average and at 39.3 in the 538 polling average.
The CNN poll has Biden’s job approval right there at 40 percent, where it’s held steady for about a year, with 60 percent disapproving. The Harvard/Harris has his approval rating a little higher at 44 percent, even though he’s at 43 percent in the ballot test. On the other hand, a new NPR/Marist poll that has Biden at a much more robust 50 percent has his job approval at 41 percent (something doesn’t quite add up there).
It’s not just that Biden’s job approval is low; he’s trailing Trump on the rather crucial metric of who was or is a successful president.
According to the CNN poll, 55 percent of the public now considers the Trump presidency a success and 44 percent look at it as a failure. Biden, in contrast, is upside down. Only 39 percent say his presidency has been a success, while 61 percent say it’s been a failure.
People may have all sorts of expectations for presidents — that they not get indicted, that they not post on TruthSocial in ALL CAPS, that they accept the results of elections, etc., etc. — but the most important one, surely, is that they succeed at the job.
Being considered a failed president is not, needless to say, a status consistent with winning reelection.
Of course, the economy is the biggest anchor on Biden. His numbers there are in the tank. CNN has his approval on the economy at 34 percent and inflation at 29 percent. The Economist/YouGov poll found the same thing — 39 percent approval on the economy and 29 percent on prices.
In a normal election, these numbers simply wouldn’t be survivable. But with two extremely well-known, unpopular candidates, this is not a normal race.
Trump’s history and personal radioactivity give Biden a lot of material to work with. The problem is that many of the attacks on Trump — especially those based on his legal prosecutions — feel irrelevant compared with the question of whom people trust to do a good job as president. Are more people going to care if Trump is convicted of felonious bookkeeping related to a payment to a porn star seven years ago, or that they think he can do a better job handling inflation?
And there’s more bad news for Biden: Besides disapproving of his job performance and his economy, people don’t particularly like him, don’t think he’s a strong leader, and don’t think he’s fit to be president.
If all that represents trouble for the incumbent, the biggest problem is that he’s failing at his job. The most direct way for Joe Biden to improve his chances in November would be to become a good president — although it’s unfair to place such unrealistic expectations on him at this juncture in his presidency and career. Other than that, it’s going great.