The different polls all agree: President Joe Biden’s political standing is lower than Barack Obama’s was at this point before his re-election — and even lower than Donald Trump’s was a year before his 2020 loss.
Last month’s national NBC News poll found Biden’s approval rating declining to 40%, the lowest mark of his presidency. (That compares with Obama’s 46% among all adults in December 2011 and Trump’s 44% in December 2019, according to past editions of the poll.)
The findings are consistent with other national and battleground-state polling showing Biden’s approval rating in the 30s and 40s.
What’s more, Biden ended the year narrowly trailing Trump in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup in the NBC News poll, albeit within the margin of error — which Obama never did against Mitt Romney in the 2012 election cycle.
Other polls also find Biden in a highly competitive 2024 contest with Trump.
And maybe most concerning of all for Biden, the NBC News poll and other surveys indicate that the Democratic coalition has frayed less than a year before the 2024 general election, with Biden experiencing declining approval ratings not just among independents but also among young voters, Latinos and even Black voters.
“On every metric, Joe Biden is in a weaker position today than when he won the 2020 election,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt, who co-conducts the NBC News poll with Republican Bill McInturff.
The culprits behind Biden’s precarious position include inflation and wages’ not keeping up with prices, concerns about Biden’s age and fitness and the Israel-Hamas war, which has resulted in some younger voters’ turning against him.
“Democrats cannot generate a national majority without a strong showing of younger voters,” Democratic pollster Cornell Belcher said.
Still, these Democratic strategists and others believe Biden’s poll slump — as it stands right now — isn’t predictive of what might happen in next November’s…
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