Democrats calm themselves over President Joe Biden’s miserable poll numbers by noting that the election remains months away, an eternity in politics. Yet as the clock ticks, the weeks run by and the balloting draws closer, Biden remains foundering in survey quicksand.
The latest bad news for the White House arrived Monday courtesy of The New York Times, Siena College and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Joint polls conducted by the trio found Biden trailing Donald Trump in five of six battleground states, including Nevada, where the former president led by a whopping 12 points.
Trump also led in Arizona (7 points), Georgia (10 points), Michigan (7 points) and Pennsylvania (3 points). Biden had a 2-point edge in Wisconsin.
Biden’s standing improved slightly when the survey considered only “likely voters.” The results remained static when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was included, indicating that he would draw support from both sides of the spectrum.
In all six states, Biden’s standing was abysmal, with only about 35%of respondents strongly or somewhat approving of his performance. “The findings reveal widespread dissatisfaction with the state of the country,” the Times reported, “and serious doubts about Biden’s ability to deliver major improvements to American life.”
Of equal concern to Democrats, the polls revealed that minority voters — “who usually represent the foundation of any Democratic path to the presidency,” the paper noted — are drifting away from Biden. So are younger Americans.
The polls found that Trump and Biden are in a dead heat with voters under 30 and with Hispanics. Trump has the support of more than 20%of Black voters, according to the surveys, which would be the best showing among that demographic for a Republican presidential candidate in 60 years. “The polls suggest that Trump’s strength among young and non-white voters,” the Times observed, “has at least temporarily upended the electoral map.”
All this despite the high-profile efforts of Democratic prosecutors to jail Trump before November and a Biden spending binge in competitive states designed to boost the president’s sagging campaign.
Republicans have squandered opportunity before, underperforming in every election since 2016. Trump, dragging mountains of baggage, has never seemed interested in courting the independents who will determine the victor this November. But Democrats who embraced Trump as the GOP nominee out of an expectation that he would be easy to beat, apparently never considered that Americans might reject a doddering incumbent who unleashed 9% inflation and has presided over increasing national and international strife.
— From Tribune News Service
