(CNN) – Voters’ scathing verdict on President Joe Biden in a new CNN poll is particularly clear in the face of one of the most disturbing elections in modern times. Fourteen months before his fate is decided, Biden’s unpopularity may set the only possible conditions for the return to power of a disgraced and undemocratic former president who could be a convicted felon on election day.
It begs the question of how GOP lead candidate Donald Trump, whose administration has been a cacophony of chaos, scandal and anger for four years and who has been trying to stay in power after losing the 2020 election, got caught in a statistical tie could (47). % to 46% of registered voters) with Biden after 91 criminal charges were filed in four cases.
The primary justification for Biden’s run for a second term is that he is the Democrat best placed to defeat Trump again. But unless political conditions change significantly in the coming months, this narrative could be in doubt.
If the president loses re-election to Trump or another Republican, the red flags contained in the CNN poll, which reflect his troubles—which other recent polls have portrayed but go much deeper into the reasons for his unease—they will predict them have the story of his fall.
The poll, conducted by SSRS and released this Thursday, paints a picture of a pessimistic and divided nation, far from seeing the return to normality Biden promised for 2020, a president the country finds neither inspirational nor trustworthy.
Biden has often been underestimated. And a national poll this far ahead of an election won in a few heavily swing states can never predict how it will turn out. There is another caveat in 2024: the numerous upcoming trials against Trump could significantly change the electoral environment.
Biden’s Great Political Challenges
However, the results raise dilemmas that Democrats have so far been unwilling to confront. Among them is whether an 80-year-old president, with 39% approval, is really the party’s best hope for next year’s elections. The poll contains enough data to suggest voters doubt that Biden, who has been on the Washington stage for half a century, has the energy to change his political stance, as Democrats like Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack have Obama did what appeared to be a treacherous re-election campaign after they embarked on it.
The poll also raises the implicit question of whether Biden will end up like Jimmy Carter, who left office after a single term and is the only commander in chief whose approval rating was worse than Biden’s as of August 3 of his term. Much has been written about Trump’s control of the Republican Party. But Biden’s control of his own party, expressed in the fact that no significant party figure is willing to risk their own future by challenging him, remains unbreakable.
The CNN poll and other snapshots of public opinion will come as a blow to a White House that has endured an arduous legislature compared to recent administrations.
Biden passed a sweeping bipartisan infrastructure bill that had eluded many predecessors. He took office amid the worst health crisis in 100 years, mishandled by Trump, and helped spur the economic recovery.
As the republic faltered after the attack on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, he sought to stabilize the country’s democracy. Biden has sought to spark an industrial renaissance, lift millions of children out of poverty, and seek to improve access to health care and some essential prescription drugs.
And he revitalized the Western alliance by mobilizing support for Ukraine after the Russian invasion – the most conspicuous display of transatlantic leadership since President George HW Bush at the end of the Cold War.
However, he doesn’t get much credit, despite his efforts to portray historical employment data and falling inflation as a major success.
The poll leaves the indelible impression that Biden’s age and the sense that he has become much less physically and mentally stable since taking office are overshadowing his achievements. Only 26% say they have the stamina and acumen to serve effectively as commander in chief. And 76% of Americans say they are seriously concerned that his age could affect his ability to serve a full term if he is re-elected.
Vice President Kamala Harris dismissed concerns about the president’s age in an interview published Thursday morning, telling CBS News, “Joe Biden is going to be fine.”
The polling data also helps explain why there is so little incentive for Republicans, who are trailing Trump by a wide margin, to drop out of the primary. Anything that pushes the favorite out of the race would result in a close duel with the incumbent for most of them.
Former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, who has little influence among GOP voters, is best placed to relegate Biden to the ignominious club of single-term presidents, in part because of her greater support among white voters with higher education than other Republicans. The fact that Haley leads Biden 49% to 43% in a hypothetical matchup but remains in the single digits in the primary underscores that the Republican Party remains more beholden to its base than to the electorate at large.
But by definition, in a 50-50 country, a president facing majority opinion on a variety of issues is bound to antagonize independents. These voters prefer Biden over Trump, but the president gets low marks from the cohort.
That vulnerability could embolden anyone thinking about a third-party run for president, like the strategists at No Labels, who hosted an event with West Virginia Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin over the summer. The group says it will only present a candidate if there is a chance of winning. But analysts warn that a third-party candidate could hit a weakened Biden hard and help Trump win a second nonconsecutive term if he is the Republican nominee.
The CNN poll, conducted between August 25 and 31, has little hope for Biden, although 44% of voters think any Democratic candidate would be a better choice than Trump. 58% of respondents say the president’s policies have worsened the economic situation.
Only 33% describe him as someone they would be proud to have as president. And dissatisfaction runs deep even within his own party: 67% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters think the party should nominate someone else, although that number represents a decline from the 75% who thought so last summer.
Still, 82% of those who would prefer another candidate have no concrete alternative in mind. This could be due to the apparent thinness of the Democratic caucus, the low profile of the party’s new generation of leadership, or Harris’ performance.
On a day when it was announced that a special prosecutor plans to indict Biden’s son Hunter on gun charges, the poll also points to the damage being done by Republican efforts to link the president to his son’s business activities.
Their tactics could be aimed at distracting from Trump’s broader legal burden. But 61% of respondents believe Joe Biden was involved in these dealings while he was vice president, although only 42% believe he acted illegally. (Republicans have offered no concrete evidence of wrongdoing by the president.)
Can Biden turn things around?
Biden’s best re-election case is that he is running against Trump, whom he defeated in 2020 and who may spend more time in court next year in his four criminal trials than he did on the campaign trail.
But the fact that there is no clear leader in the hypothetical confrontation between the two should particularly worry Democrats, since the party’s nominee generally needs a slightly higher majority in the popular vote than the Republican to win the presidency in the Electoral College . Even if Democrats reject the results of a single poll, many other surveys and anecdotal data suggest that the liberal conventional wisdom that Americans could never vote for Trump again is misplaced.
Of course, Trump’s clear liability to millions of voters could become even clearer if he actually goes on trial, and possibly if he is convicted in any of the cases to which he has pleaded not guilty. Even the former president’s possible return to full national prominence in the 2024 campaign could remind many voters, particularly moderates in swing states, of the volcanic traits, lies and autocratic impulses that convinced them to oust him from office three years ago.
Democrats may also look back with hope to last year’s midterm elections, when Biden’s strategy of running against Trump when he wasn’t directly participating in the election was far more successful than experts expected, crushing a Republican red wave. And the idea of a democracy on the brink could be a much more tangible motivator for voters as Trump comes close to regaining power.
In fact, Biden’s best chance may be that he can turn the election into a referendum on the trauma and upheaval that a second Trump term could bring.
But while Trump has destroyed all the rituals of politics, a party conference could hold its own. Re-election races typically take place as a referendum on the incumbent’s last four years in office. Biden will not be judged solely against Trump, as he was four years ago when the country was suffering from a pandemic. This time his own record is at stake. If you can’t increase your 39% approval rating by 10 points, you’re going to be in trouble. If there is a turnaround in the Republican Party and a candidate other than Trump wins the nomination, Biden could come under even greater scrutiny.
And it’s a disheartening truth that some of Biden’s biggest drawbacks appear difficult to fix.
The one thing that can’t change is his age, which will likely play an even bigger role next year, when he turns 82 weeks after the election.
Aging is a painful topic for everyone, and even more so for someone in the spotlight of public opinion. (Trump, who will be 78 when voters go to the polls next November, has faced less scrutiny on this front.)
The president’s health and mental capacity will play a more important role in this election than in any other election in American history. His doctors have certified that Biden is fit for office, but there are doubts about whether he will be able to stick to the rigorous campaign schedule that incumbent presidents running for re-election typically employ. Any failure in this regard, or even a minor health problem, will be used as evidence of illness by his opponents, who are already ruthlessly exploiting every mistake, every stumble or every moment of age to argue that Biden is too old.
There is also another burden: the economy.
In an age of polarization, the idea that every presidential election depends on the economy may no longer be as reliable as it once was. But Biden’s weaknesses revealed in the poll could be as difficult to address as questions about his age and mental fitness.
According to most indicators, the economy is doing well. Unemployment is near historic lows. Inflation, which reached its highest level since the 1980s a year ago, has stabilized. And life has become much more normal than it has been since the Covid-19 emergency. Americans, for example, are on the move again in large numbers.
However, Biden is not benefiting from such a “Morning in America” moment that helped win back President Ronald Reagan in 1984. Seventy percent of those surveyed believe that things are going badly in the country. Only 49% of Democrats believe things are going well. Biden retains control of key Democratic coalitions, but the question is to what extent his base will be motivated to show up.
Although the White House can point to indicators that the economy is improving, life remains tough for many Americans. High interest rates imposed by the Federal Reserve to combat inflation have made it difficult for many to buy a home, move or purchase a new vehicle.
For small businesses that rely on loans, profit margins are shrinking. Food prices appear to remain high and gasoline prices are rising again.
Despite the extraordinary disadvantages with which Trump would enter the general election as the Republican Party’s nominee, Biden has his own, which is one of the reasons the 2024 election is likely to be as close as their previous matchup.