news Joe Biden is less popular than last four presidents who failed to win second term

[GraceRandolph]

President Joe Biden's current approval rating is lower than that of the last four presidents who failed to win a second term, according to polling data.

Biden's popularity among voters has been a major talking point in the 2024 campaign. His approval rating percentage has steadily been in the low 40s for most of his presidency. It was at its highest when Biden first took office in January 2021 at 53.1 percent and at its lowest in July 2022 at 38.2 percent, according to poll aggregator FiveThirtyEight.

A recent poll conducted by the American Research Group from December 17-20 found that 37 percent of Americans approve of Biden's handling of his presidency, while 57 percent disapprove. The poll surveyed 1,100 adults living in the continental U.S. and had a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Looking at how Biden's popularity fares compared to past incumbents who lost their reelection campaigns, he has a lower approval rating than Donald Trump, George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford at the same point in their presidencies.

Biden's approval rating is about 10 points behind former Democratic President Jimmy Carter's at this point in their presidencies. On the 1,074th day of the Carter administration, the president had a 49.2 percent approval rating. Carter lost to Republican candidate Ronald Reagan in the 1980 election.

 

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/joe-biden-less-popular-last-4-presidents-who-failed-win-second-term-1856574

Edited December 30, 2023 by GraceRandolph

[shyboi]

It's not too late, almost 11 months before election, they need to ditch his tired ARSE 

Edited December 30, 2023 by shyboi

[GraceRandolph]

2 minutes ago, shyboi said:

It's not too late, almost 11 months before election, they need to ditch his tired ARSE 

It's the only way forward.

[Bentley]

Pack your bags Joe

[airplane]

it’s what the genocidal pig deserves 

 

 

Edited December 30, 2023 by airplane

[Space Cowboy]

I hope he wins anyway. 

 

The situation in Gaza is unfortunate. However, no one needs 4 more years of Trump, someone who gives racism a platform, someone who doesn’t take seriously climate change, someone who wants to take away lgbt, reproductive rights, deport minorities, etc…

And let’s not pretend the republicans would have handled the situation in Gaza better. They hate arabs and would be very content on eliminating them.

[shyboi]

5 minutes ago, Space Cowboy said:

I hope he wins anyway. 

 

The situation in Gaza is unfortunate.

 

The situation in Gaza is way more than just "unfortunate" sis.

[DemDam92]

And of course Mariah was stupid enough to take a pic with him and post it 

 

 

[Revolution]

we need to replace him with taylor.

 

she is the only one who can save the country now.

[Vroom Vroom]

Is Biden a perfect candidate? No

Would any democrat on the bench be in a better position to win? No

 

Approval ratings are different now than they were 20 years ago. The partisan divide is much larger. Republicans disapprove of him because he has a D next to his name. To get at the very least a 50% approval rating now, he would need every democrat to approve of him. Which is impossible, the democrat tent is too diverse and it is impossible to make the whole base happy all the time. 

Also, his predecessor claims that the election that put Biden in power was rigged and Trump did everything he could to stop a peaceful transfer of power. No Trump supporter is ever going to approve of Biden because they fully believe he is an illegitimate president. No matter what he does in office. 

 

Even with Biden’s awful approval rating, democrats have been over performing in elections since Biden was elected. Look at the midterm elections and the 2023 elections. It does not look like Biden’s approval rating correlates with Democrat election performance. Of course it may be different if Biden’s name is actually on the ballot, but we will see what happens in 2024

[Bloodflowers.]

Democrats are in a crisis. Marianne Williamson is on her way!

[Fuoco]

2 hours ago, Vroom Vroom said:

Is Biden a perfect candidate? No

Would any democrat on the bench be in a better position to win? No

 

Approval ratings are different now than they were 20 years ago. The partisan divide is much larger. Republicans disapprove of him because he has a D next to his name. To get at the very least a 50% approval rating now, he would need every democrat to approve of him. Which is impossible, the democrat tent is too diverse and it is impossible to make the whole base happy all the time. 

Also, his predecessor claims that the election that put Biden in power was rigged and Trump did everything he could to stop a peaceful transfer of power. No Trump supporter is ever going to approve of Biden because they fully believe he is an illegitimate president. No matter what he does in office. 

 

Even with Biden’s awful approval rating, democrats have been over performing in elections since Biden was elected. Look at the midterm elections and the 2023 elections. It does not look like Biden’s approval rating correlates with Democrat election performance. Of course it may be different if Biden’s name is actually on the ballot, but we will see what happens in 2024

This, all of this!

Thanks for your explanation and providing context.

[Breathe On Moi]

2 hours ago, Vroom Vroom said:

Is Biden a perfect candidate? No

Would any democrat on the bench be in a better position to win? No

 

Approval ratings are different now than they were 20 years ago. The partisan divide is much larger. Republicans disapprove of him because he has a D next to his name. To get at the very least a 50% approval rating now, he would need every democrat to approve of him. Which is impossible, the democrat tent is too diverse and it is impossible to make the whole base happy all the time. 

Also, his predecessor claims that the election that put Biden in power was rigged and Trump did everything he could to stop a peaceful transfer of power. No Trump supporter is ever going to approve of Biden because they fully believe he is an illegitimate president. No matter what he does in office. 

 

Even with Biden’s awful approval rating, democrats have been over performing in elections since Biden was elected. Look at the midterm elections and the 2023 elections. It does not look like Biden’s approval rating correlates with Democrat election performance. Of course it may be different if Biden’s name is actually on the ballot, but we will see what happens in 2024

I know once comm union and friends see this they will beat up on you, but for now, very eloquently and well said 

[Communion]

46 minutes ago, Breathe On Moi said:

I know once comm union and friends see this they will beat up on you, but for now, very eloquently and well said 

You obviously have chosen blind partisanship and treating politics like stanning instead of viewing mine and @Vroom Vroom's productive discussions in the election thread. 

 

Why would I care or be angry over people voting for Biden? My entire political philosophy is that scolding or guilt-tripping is not a successful form of persuasion, made in defense of non-voters and 3rd party voters. 

[GhostBox]

And yet he will probably win the EC again 🤷🎉

[prézli]

On 12/30/2023 at 10:32 AM, GraceRandolph said:

he has a lower approval rating than Donald Trump

welp, it's over

[Bloo]

On 12/30/2023 at 7:55 AM, Vroom Vroom said:

Would any democrat on the bench be in a better position to win? No

Could you please elaborate on why you think this?

 

So many people say this as if it's an obvious point, but to me it makes no sense. Biden, as a person, has never been all that popular. He was only attractive in the 2020 primaries because people presumed he would have the best shot of winning. That's it. That is also why many Democratic higher-ups (including Barack Obama) were floating the idea of backing Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Michael Bloomberg, Deval Patrick, and others before settling on Biden upon him winning the SC primary. Biden isn't a popular figure. So, please, explain why Biden is the uniquely strong candidate despite his deep unpopularity, his weak poll numbers, the looming concerns about his mental competence, the growing disdain for his economy, and the fact that a Generic Democratic polls better than Biden against Trump [x].

[Gorjesspazze9]

Who thought it was a good idea to put a 80 year old in office?  
America truly is the dumbest country 

[Raver]

He is the worst president in modern time. Worse than bush and any of his supporters saying otherwise are either extremely privileged or delusional. 

[Gottasadae]

You can hate on him all you want but it's hard to deny that he has a tough days since day 1 in office - Covid, economy crisis plus 2 wars on top of that. I think in that case, every other president would have the same low approval rating 

[Vroom Vroom]

3 minutes ago, Bloo said:

Could you please elaborate on why you think this?

 

So many people say this as if it's an obvious point, but to me it makes no sense. Biden, as a person, has never been all that popular. He was only attractive in the 2020 primaries because people presumed he would have the best shot of winning. That's it. That is also why many Democratic higher-ups (including Barack Obama) were floating the idea of backing Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Michael Bloomberg, Deval Patrick, and others before settling on Biden upon him winning the SC primary. Biden isn't a popular figure. So, please, explain why Biden is the uniquely strong candidate despite his deep unpopularity, his weak poll numbers, the looming concerns about his mental competence, the growing disdain for his economy, and the fact that a Generic Democratic polls better than Biden against Trump [x].

The simple answer is that he is the incumbent. He has won a presidential election before and he has been tested on the national stage. Replacing an incumbent at any level (local, state or national) is extremely risky. On paper a generic democrat like Whitmer sounds perfect, but we have no clue how the public would react to her or what oppo research will find. While Biden’s dirty laundry has been aired out and we know what people think of him 

 

It would have been justifiable to replace Biden if the 2022 midterms were a red wave, but they weren’t even when the polls claimed they would be. Democrats keep winning elections while Biden is the incumbent. Something worked for democrats in the 2023 elections, I’m not saying that Biden deserves credit for those results, but replacing an incumbent for a new face after having a positive off year election would be high risk and low reward 

 

 

[ClashAndBurn]

1 hour ago, Bloo said:

Could you please elaborate on why you think this?

 

So many people say this as if it's an obvious point, but to me it makes no sense. Biden, as a person, has never been all that popular. He was only attractive in the 2020 primaries because people presumed he would have the best shot of winning. That's it. That is also why many Democratic higher-ups (including Barack Obama) were floating the idea of backing Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, Michael Bloomberg, Deval Patrick, and others before settling on Biden upon him winning the SC primary. Biden isn't a popular figure. So, please, explain why Biden is the uniquely strong candidate despite his deep unpopularity, his weak poll numbers, the looming concerns about his mental competence, the growing disdain for his economy, and the fact that a Generic Democratic polls better than Biden against Trump [x].

Because as bad as Biden is and seems to be, every single Democrat that could ever possibly hope to gain the nomination would flop harder. The Democrats stand for nothing; all Joe has is the name recognition from being Obama’s VP and now from being president himself. Granted, he’s just an empty husk that stands for nothing as well, but the name recognition from being the second fiddle to Obama is what spares him.

 

The Democrats are done for after Biden. At least when it comes to presidential races. Abortion will save them in certain Congressional races, but the Senate will be permanently lost thanks to Manchin’s seat being forfeit.

[Bloo]

40 minutes ago, Vroom Vroom said:

The simple answer is that he is the incumbent. He has won a presidential election before and he has been tested on the national stage. Replacing an incumbent at any level (local, state or national) is extremely risky. On paper a generic democrat like Whitmer sounds perfect, but we have no clue how the public would react to her or what oppo research will find. While Biden’s dirty laundry has been aired out and we know what people think of him 

Being an incumbent is a pretty poor argument when the last incumbent literally lost to Biden. As for how people think of him, we do know what people think of him. People's opinion of him has literally soured over time and data consistently show that he has little to no loyalty exclusive to him. He is at all-time lows with demographics of voters that historically are Democratic strongholds. Even some demographics (e.g., young voters, Arabic Americans) are starting to lean towards Trump. Of course, this could all change. But to pretend that his perception is stable is ridiculous and just shows a refusal to accept new information—as if things have been static and stable since 2020 which is far from reality.

Quote

It would have been justifiable to replace Biden if the 2022 midterms were a red wave, but they weren’t even when the polls claimed they would be.

This... isn't true. The polls were generally pretty accurate in 2022 and did not predict a Red Wave.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2022/11/27/23475262/midterm-elections-2022-results-red-wave-democrats

 

Conversely, the actual problem leading up to 2022 in terms of prediction were the media. So much of the media and punditry discussed relied on the conventional wisdom of, "Well, the party in power usually underperforms," to justify the intuition that a Red Wave was on the horizon. You also had a lot of right-wing pundits that explicitly sold the message that polls are part of the deep state and not to be trusted and that's precisely why a Red Wave was inevitable (which is a hilarious logical fallacy). I remember several pundits (e.g., Saagar and Krystal from Breaking Points) that would besmirch polls and assume a "shy Trump voter" or "silent majority" bump to Republican numbers in polls because they just distrusted them (e.g., "The polls show the Democrats up by only 4 points on average. Well, we know the polls undersell the Republican voter, so that means that this polls basically gives Republicans the edge"). The truth is that the polls in the 2022 midterms were startlingly accurate compared to other years, with a weighted average error of 4.8 for 2022 when the mean of the same metric is 6.0.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/2022-election-polling-accuracy/

 

The best recent example of the polls being wildly off was the election year of 2020 (e.g., Biden's margin of victory was anticipated to be much higher than it turned out to be). The problem with that example is that there were a lot of historical variables that complicate the ability of the polls to scale as well for things like voter turnout during a global pandemic where voting rules were changed on a state-by-state basis to accommodate the situation. Even then, the polls predicted Democrats to win the White House, Senate, and House and that's what ultimately happened (albeit, narrowly).

Quote

Democrats keep winning elections while Biden is the incumbent. Something worked for democrats in the 2023 elections, I’m not saying that Biden deserves credit for those results, but replacing an incumbent for a new face after having a positive off year election would be high risk and low reward 

When voters are asked about why they're voting, abortion rights and anti-Trump sentiment is the primary factor. That has nothing to do with Biden. Those victories should not remotely be associated with Biden being in the White House. A replacement candidate would have the exact same advantages. In fact, Biden is even worse on the issue of abortion rights sentiment because he's been so passive on the issue.

40 minutes ago, ClashAndBurn said:

Because as bad as Biden is and seems to be, every single Democrat that could ever possibly hope to gain the nomination would flop harder. The Democrats stand for nothing; all Joe has is the name recognition from being Obama’s VP and now from being president himself. Granted, he’s just an empty husk that stands for nothing as well, but the name recognition from being the second fiddle to Obama is what spares him.

 

The Democrats are done for after Biden. At least when it comes to presidential races. Abortion will save them in certain Congressional races, but the Senate will be permanently lost thanks to Manchin’s seat being forfeit.

Yeah, the Democrats suck. But Biden is terrible at even doing lip service politics. Someone who is at least present and visible is going to have more bandwidth to win over people than the muted performance of Biden where he basically hides in the cellar of the White House. Again, I think all of your arguments (like most of the pro-Biden arguments for his nomination) are all conjecture and highly subjective. I understand where you're coming from, but it's not an effective argument to convince me or anyone else that doesn't already agree with you.

[bad guy]

On 12/30/2023 at 4:55 AM, Vroom Vroom said:

Even with Biden’s awful approval rating, democrats have been over performing in elections since Biden was elected. Look at the midterm elections and the 2023 elections. It does not look like Biden’s approval rating correlates with Democrat election performance.

I would argue that this is more of a backlash against Roe being overturned rather than support of Biden himself. In local elections Democrats have been successfully fundraising off of abortion messaging and it's been successful in that area because the outcome (protecting reproductive rights) is much more tangible than a general election. I don't think we're going to see this kind of support when Joe Biden's name is on the ticket. And it won't be because people hate Biden per se, but total apathy instead. Low turnout = Trump winning the EC.

[Communion]

@Vroom Vroom @Bloo @ClashAndBurn

 

I think how other Dems poll poorly like Biden does once named vs how "Generic Dem" does proves an interesting point, and one that favors progressives' concerns.

 

That our concern with Biden isn't personal. It's not rooted in some hatred of him as a person (though I think there's obviously quirks to him as a personality that have manifested in his presidency, like his vehement Zionism being over-the-top for even a Dem and largely rooted in his own personal views).

 

The "backbench" we have are largely mealy-mouthed establishment Dems who have no political vision. I think 2020 showed us people don't just respond to policy; however, how politicians respond to the political consensus of a coalition impacts how people "perceive" their character, which is also huge part of politics.

 

Biden and Sanders consolidated the field in 2020 due to building high levels of trust with two distinct coalitions of voters (and the chances of people like Beto, Buttigieg, Kamala, Warren, etc. all ended up collapsing the moment that they ended up losing trust with the voters they were aiming for).

 

A huge part of why Biden beat Trump is because he built trust amongst young progressives by claiming to adopt much of Sanders' agenda, and the driving force for his poor polling now is largely due to young voters/voters of color not voting / voting 3rd party due to that trust being broken.

 

That most big-name Dems *similarly* are seen as fakes and phonies like Biden is now is not then evidence to accept Biden's flaws and failures (which are almost guaranteed to hand Trump the presidency), but demand Democrats as a party recognize the desires of actual voters. Biden CAN win. He just can't win while enabling genocide. Biden CAN win. He just can't win while giving millions to ICE to snatch immigrants out of their homes in the middle of the night. Biden CAN win. He just can't win while ignoring mass economic suffering due to corporate greed and trying to run on a dead-end economic message of Bidenomics.

 

I agree it's not as simple as replacing Biden with another Dem just as corrupt and regressive as him. It's not his age or demeanor that is the issue. It's something existential at the core of the Democratic party, which is why partisan VBNMW Democrats who don't see Biden's refusal to shift leftward and course correct for the reckoning as it is are those who'll actually enable a Trump win.

 

This was essentially my comment to @Breathe On Moi. I WANT Biden to win. That's why it TERRIFIES me that he and so many in his administration are blatantly refusing the only viable pathway we have to defeat Trump (embracing the progressive policy desires of the actual Dem base).

Edited December 31, 2023 by Communion