I did a double-take after seeing these numbers yesterday morning. The latest Washington Post/ABC News national poll, which Matt touched on here, is a blockbuster. A few important caveats: First, even though a lot of surveys have been quite ugly for President Biden recently, the staggering depth of his struggles in this latest poll very much looks like an outlier -- for now. Second, the general election is more than a year away. Hypothetical polling this far out is mostly meaningless, in terms of predictive value. But may be a little less meaningless than would be the case under different circumstances, a point to which I'll return later. Third, if we do indeed witness a 2020 rematch next year, other data shows that a Trump criminal conviction on one or more felony counts (a real possibility) could upend the race, even if he's currently competitive-to-favored.
With all that being said, Democrats who were already feeling increasingly queasy about the prospect of marching into 2024's electoral battle with Biden at the top of the ticket might have felt compelled to reach for the smelling salts or a stiff drink after glancing at these numbers. Wreckage:
🇺🇲 NATIONAL POLL: ABC/WP (A)
— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) September 24, 2023
PRES:
(R) Trump 52% (+10)
(D) Biden 42%
Independents
(R) Trump 52 (+13)
(D) Biden 39%
——
GOP PRES:
Trump 54% (+39)
DeSantis 15%
Haley 7%
Pence 6%
Scott 4%
Christie 3%
Ramaswamy 3%
——
ABC/WP (A) | 890 RV | 9/15-20https://t.co/gQAFyanIdp pic.twitter.com/nAftBfXbKk
Among registered voters, Trump is up by nine points, 51-42. ABC's write-up reads like a horror novel for the White House:
President Joe Biden's job approval rating is 19 points underwater, his ratings for handling the economy and immigration are at career lows. A record number of Americans say they've become worse off under his presidency, three-quarters say he's too old for another term and Donald Trump is looking better in retrospect -- all severe challenges for Biden in his reelection campaign ahead. Forty-four percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they've gotten worse off financially under Biden's presidency, the most for any president in ABC/Post polls since 1986. Just 37% approve of his job performance, while 56% disapprove. Still fewer approve of Biden's performance on the economy, 30%. On handling immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, Biden's rating is even lower, with 23% approval. In terms of intensity of sentiment, 20% strongly approve of his work overall, while 45% strongly disapprove. And the 74% who say he's too old for a second term is up 6 percentage points since May. Such is down-on-Biden sentiment that if a government shutdown occurs at month's end, 40% say they'd chiefly blame him and the Democrats in Congress, versus 33% who'd pin it on the Republicans in Congress -- even given the GOP infighting behind the budget impasse.
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Hardly a glimmer of positivity for the Democrats in any of that. It's extraordinary that Democrats are poised to shoulder more blame for a looming partial government shutdown. Republicans usually, but not always, lose the public opinion battle in these standoffs, even when both sides share significant responsibility. In this circumstance, at least for now, virtually all of the infighting and dysfunction is on the GOP side, yet voters are crabby enough with Democrats that the specific dynamics at play leave Biden's party holding the short straw in this poll. Biden and his team insist that "Bidenomics is working." Given the president's 30 percent economic approval stat in this survey (a new low in the series), plus some other findings, it's difficult to overstate how much voters disagree with the official White House and Biden campaign line. Remember, Bidenomics is a term the administration decided to embrace and effectively tattoo across the president's forehead:
As much as he has tried to convince voters that “Bidenomics is working,” Americans are increasingly of the mind that it is not.
— Steven Portnoy (@stevenportnoy) September 24, 2023
Close to 90% in @ABC/@washingtonpost poll have negative views of cost of food & gas. 74% have negative view of the econ.https://t.co/WHbf1HUDcr
Three-to-one 'worse off' over 'better off' is pretty grim stuff, even within a decidedly Biden/Democrat-hostile sample:
WATCH: "These numbers are simply staggering for the sitting president” as 44% of Americans say they are NOT as well off as they were when Biden took office. “Worst numbers we’ve seen.” pic.twitter.com/3J3cNZ7WCx
— TV News Now (@TVNewsNow) September 24, 2023
People are feeling this way not because they've been duped by right-wing propaganda, but because they're living out their lives and know they're not better off;
Maybe that new ABC poll is a crazy outlier. Probably is. But if you are the incumbent president, you DO NOT want to see real median household income numbers like this 👇 https://t.co/wl8ZSWwRjg pic.twitter.com/nJhP0y7qUl
— James Pethokoukis (@JimPethokoukis) September 24, 2023
On the 'outlier' status of this data set, some of the data gurus have thoughts:
If it happens twice in a row in the same race, it's clear that this is the result of some element of your approach, and either you either need to decide you're good with it and defend it or you need to go home
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) September 24, 2023
Some of you guys are literally kind of insane sweating every general election poll when it's 14 months away from the election. Guess what? The outcome is highly uncertain. It's going to be a long time before any poll ought to meaningfully move you off whatever priors you have.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) September 24, 2023
Silver's admonition almost feels like therapy for distressed lefties. Cohn's point is a fair one, and there are very legitimate reasons to be skeptical of these particular results. For example, I am willing to believe that Trump is neck-and-neck with Biden, or even slightly leading (Trump is tied or ahead in seven consecutive public polls, and Biden leads by just a single point in three of the last dozen). I am not willing to believe, as this survey finds, that Trump is leading by double digits among voters under 40, or that he's only trailing Biden by single digits among non-white voters (in spite of Biden's documented struggles with non-whites). Those are screwy, implausible outcomes, which fuel the 'outlier' label. Caution is certainly warranted. Nevertheless, 'Restless Biden Syndrome" is likely to deepen. And, yes, even though this hypothetical head-to-head polling is ridiculously early, Trump and Biden are the former and current presidents, respectively, replete with full name recognition and firmly-formed public perceptions. 'Crazy early' may therefore be slightly less crazy and less early than it would be if the hypothetical match-up involved others. Relatedly, I'll leave you with NBC's new poll, which is better for Democrats than the survey discussed in this piece -- but even a tie isn't exactly good news for Biden:
Pick your poll. New WaPo/ABC has Trump +10 — NBC has the hypothetical race tied: https://t.co/NRUq6fNX8M
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) September 24, 2023
Kornacki wonders if Nikki Haley's relatively strong showing against Biden (again) is a product of voters knowing less about her, and therefore being closer to a 'generic' Republican than other, better-known names. That's possible, but Haley may also read more like the desired 'generic' Republican upon further scrutiny, too. He also notes these areas of concern to voters in the NBC poll:
- Biden age/health: 74%
- Trump felony charges/criminal & civil cases: 62%
- Biden possible awareness of/involvement in son Hunter’s business dealings/alleged wrongdoing: 60%
- Trump age/health: 47%
Despite being nearly the same age, Biden and Trump are worlds apart on the age/health question, in voters' eyes. And Trump's very significant legal woes are virtually tied with Biden's ethics scandal as a concern. The extent to which the latter factor could help cancel out the former would be a major boon to Trump -- although, again, a felony conviction could scramble that calculus pretty dramatically.
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