


Just 32% of Americans think President Biden deserves to be re-elected next year — and more than half of those inclined to vote for Democrats want the party to nominate another candidate, according to a stunning new poll.
The CNN/SSRS survey released Thursday found 67% of Americans said the 80-year-old did not deserve re-election, with the remaining 1% saying they had no opinion.
The poll also found Biden’s approval rating at 42%, down from 46% in early December, just after the midterm elections.
That same early December poll found just 37% of adults felt Biden deserved four more years as the leader of the free world, with 62% saying he did not.
The decline is driven by lower enthusiasm for the president among younger people and self-identified liberals. Only 26% percent of Americans aged 18-34 and only 53% of liberals wanted to see Biden in office again — 10 percentage-point drops in both demographics from December.
Meanwhile, 54% of Democrats and left-leaning Independents want to see a different candidate on the ballot — down from 75% who said the same this past summer.
However, Democrats could not seem to agree on an alternative to Biden, with 69% of the group who wanted someone different unable to pick a name.
An unusually large subsection of people who approve of Biden’s performance (11%) also do not want to see him remain president until 2029, when he would leave office at the age of 86.
Biden has not officially announced he is running for re-election, and reportedly could be pushing back an expected announcement until the fall, breaking precedent with the last four presidents — all of whom announced their re-election bids in the second quarter of their third year in office.
George H.W. Bush, the most recent outlier, announced his re-election campaign in October of 1991, losing the following year to Bill Clinton.
Americans also are not fond of Biden’s handling of major issues, with only 35% admiring his immigration policy, and just 37% giving him a thumbs up for his handling of the economy and gun control.
The commander-in-chief’s approval ratings on national security (44%) and environmental policy (46%) were slightly higher than his overall rating.
Two out of three respondents (67%) thought the octogenarian lacked the “stamina and sharpness” to serve effectively, while 65% said he did not “inspire confidence.” More than half of those surveyed (54%) thought Biden was not “honest and trustworthy.”
The CNN/SSRS poll surveyed 1,595 randomly selected adults from March 1-31. It has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 3.3 percentage points.