President Joe Biden has had a string of bad polls, with the latest showing him losing ground to former President Donald Trump in several battleground states and hitting a new low approval rating.
With Sunday's NBC News poll showing Trump taking the lead in 2024 and Biden receiving a 40% approval rating, some Democrats are worried that the president will not be able to turn around enough support before the general election next November, while others have brushed off concerns about polling as too early to make a difference.
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New York Times chief political analyst Nate Cohn said polling results are "serious but not predictive."
"The voters know these candidates well, so what they say is worth taking seriously," Cohn said on Sunday. "Indeed, campaigns taking it seriously may even contribute to changing the numbers over the next years."
Biden, who turns 81 on Monday, has faced everything from criticism to concern from Republicans and members of his own party over his ability to serve in the White House, particularly because he would be 86 at the end of his second term.
The recent polling numbers are not offering Democrats much comfort.
A recent Wall Street Journal poll found that two-thirds of Democrats believe Biden is too old to be president, the latest numbers following a string of incidents, including trips and falls, malapropisms, and losing his train of thought. A recent New York Times/Siena College poll also found that Trump is leading Biden in five battleground states, as well as making inroads among black and young voters, two voting blocs that were crucial to Biden's win in 2020.
Some Democrats believe that the writing is on the wall and Biden should drop out before Trump secures enough of a lead to win in 2024. However, Biden's campaign and other close Democratic allies have said polls are meaningless this far out from the Nov. 5, 2024, election.
Still, it may be too late to bring up Biden's popularity decline. The only incumbent within the last 80 years to trail an opponent one year out from the election was Trump, falling to Biden by about 10 points in November 2019, according to Axios. Trump has also led Biden in 17 national surveys this election cycle so far after leading none of them in the 2020 cycle.
Democrats are particularly worried about Biden's ability to make up for lost time with key voting blocs such as black and Muslim voters.
A nationwide poll of Arab American voters found that support for Biden has dropped dramatically from 59% to 17%, a decrease of 42 percentage points from 2020, since the president has pledged unwavering support to Israel in its battle against Hamas that began in October.
Democrats have also been concerned for some time that Biden has a "huge problem" with black voters heading into 2024. The New York Times/Siena College poll found that 22% of black voters in six of the most important battleground states — Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — said they would vote for Trump in next year's election, compared to the 8% that supported Trump in 2020.
Several black voters have said that the state of the economy is what is turning them away from Biden, while other black voters are unimpressed with both Trump and Biden and may not even show up to the polls in 2024. For Muslim Americans, Democratic leaders of the voting bloc in several key battleground states have warned that they may lean Republican if Biden continues to ignore Muslim voices.
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In the weeks after the Hamas attacks, the president has called for humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza affected by the war. Still, his support among Muslim Americans is slumping, particularly in Michigan.
Vice President Kamala Harris said on CNN on Sunday that there is "no doubt" that she and the president will have to "earn our reelect." However, she has brushed off concerns about Biden's age in the past few months, stating that Biden is "very much alive" and would be running for reelection. Some critics are also worried that a Biden departure would be Harris's ascendance as the Democratic nominee in 2024.