Chris Lange, FISM News
[elfsight_social_share_buttons id=”1″]
New polling shows that President Joe Biden faces an uphill battle in his reelection campaign as his job approval rating has plunged to a new low along with voter confidence that he is cognitively fit to serve a second term.
A new survey conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News found that Biden’s approval rating dropped six points from 42% to 36% between February and May. Only 18% of Americans said they “strongly approve” of the president’s job performance while 47% “strongly disapprove.”
In a hypothetical 2024 rematch between former President Donald Trump and Biden that may well come to fruition, 44% said they would likely vote for Trump while 38% said they are leaning toward Biden. In terms of who handled the economy better in their respective terms, 54% chose Trump compared to 36% who selected the current president. Seven percent said neither handled the economy well.
In more bad news for Biden, only 32% of registered voters think that the octogenarian has the cognitive acuity to serve another term, representing a significant plunge from 51% who said the same prior to the 2020 election. Biden would be 86 years old at the end of a second term if he were reelected.
Just 33% said that the current president possesses the physical fitness to govern while an overwhelming 64% said the same of Trump, who is just four years Biden’s junior at 76 years old.
The survey did show a slight increase in support for Biden among Democratic and Democrat-leaning voters, up five points from February. However, the majority (58%) said that they would prefer a different nominee.
BIDEN AND TRUMP TAKE ON FOES
The Biden campaign has tacitly acknowledged the likelihood of a 2020 rematch between the current and former presidents in 2024. Biden’s campaign messaging so far has sought to position him as the defender of a democracy under threat from “MAGA Republican extremists.” Meanwhile, Trump and his super PAC currently perceive Ron DeSantis to be the greatest menace to the 45th president’s 2024 ambitions, targeting the Republican Florida governor in a series of negative campaign ads.
It is worth noting that both Trump and Biden are the subjects of partisan probes. Trump pleaded not guilty last month to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments to former adult actress Stormy Daniels and faces an array of other criminal allegations. Meanwhile, President Biden faces intensifying scrutiny in a corruption probe led by House Republicans who have accused him and his family members of profiting off of a years-long overseas influence peddling scheme.
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle recently challenged Biden to address critics who say that he is too old to seek reelection.
“There is not a Fortune 500 company in the world looking to hire a CEO in his 80s, so why would an 82-year-old Joe Biden be the right person for the most important job in the world?” Ruhle asked the president in an interview that aired on Saturday. Biden clapped back that he knew “more than the vast majority of people.”
In what has been widely viewed as an attempt to mitigate concerns about Biden’s advanced age, the administration has ramped up efforts to raise Vice President Kamala Harris’s domestic and international profile. Biden recently appointed his second-in-command as the new AI czar, according to Breitbart, and the administration has sent the veep on several highly-publicized overseas trips. The new strategy may be working. A March 2023 Monmouth poll found that only 36% of registered voters approved of Harris’s job performance, with 53% expressing disapproval. Two days prior to Biden’s April 26 reelection campaign launch, YouGov America poll released results from a survey showing that 52% of registered voters approved of Harris’s job performance, with 44% of Americans disapproving.
Harris has also stepped up her pro-abortion rhetoric at a time when pundits on both sides of the aisle are saying that Republicans have hemorrhaged coveted independent voter support with the party’s hardline pro-life stance in the wake of the 2022 repeal of federal abortion rights.
This article was partially informed by The Hill and Axios reports.