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It's Not Just Young People Who Biden Has a Polling Problem With

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  November 29, 2023 12:15 PM

As we've been covering for years now--since months into his time in office--President Joe Biden is doing poorly with young people. That problem isn't going away for Biden, especially as the 2024 presidential election looms closer. This poor performance is reflected in the polls and when it comes to their outrage that he's supposedly not doing enough for Palestinians following the October 7 terrorist attack that Hamas perpetrated against Israel. While there's still time for Biden to improve, and Republicans can't afford to get cocky at this point, or really any point, before Election Day, Biden is still not where he wants to be, and it's not just with young voters either.

VIP pieces from earlier this week and from last month addressed Biden's problems with young people, and whether or not former and potentially future President Donald Trump could actually do well with the key voting bloc if 2024 is indeed a rematch from 2020. Earlier this month, a Fox News poll was released, and, just like the others, it showed concerns with how Biden is not doing well with young people, but also how he's not doing well with other demographics, either.

Biden is at an overall 40 percent approval rating, while 59 percent disapprove of his job performance in this poll. That disapproval rating is at 63 percent among men; at 62 percent among voters under 45; 60 percent for Hispanic voters; 57 percent for those with a college degree; and even 41 percent among black voters. 

In 2020, Biden's win was credited in part to his performance with young people. Pew Research showed that 59 percent of voters under 30 favored Biden. He had also made gains among men in 2020 compared to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in 2016. In 2020, 50 percent of men went for Trump, while 48 percent went for Biden. When it comes to Hispanics, 59 percent also went for Biden, while 61 percent of those with a college degree did, and 92 percent of black voters went for Biden.

Not long after that election, the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) put out research on "Election Week 2020: Young People Increase Turnout, Lead Biden to Victory."

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On Tuesday, Fox News put out a piece on "2024 showdown: Biden faces bigger polling deficit now than Obama did in 2011," which highlighted those specific disapproval ratings above. Also included were comments from a Republican pollster, Neil Newhouse, who said the polls "aren't necessarily predictive a year out," a true point to emphasize for sure. "But that doesn’t mean you ignore these polls and they do so at their own risk," he also shared, referring to the Biden campaign.

And, as Newhouse is also quoted as saying, "Joe Biden is not the campaigner and communicator that Barack Obama was. The Obama folks had the full resources of a strong candidate at their disposal and I don’t think the Biden campaign does."

Guy also covered some Fox News poll findings not long after it was released, and he discussed poll findings as part of a Fox News panel as well. A post of his highlighting how Republicans have a significant advantage of double digits on key issues over Democrats also points to a crucial theme of how, despite such advantages, Republicans could still screw this up between now and then. That doesn't take away from how bad, "hideous," even that the polls look for Biden, though.

As the headline for the above Fox News poll suggests, there's a significant emphasis on how Biden is faring compared to how President Barack Obama--in office when Biden was vice president--fared in 2011 ahead of the 2012 election. Although polls weren't always too kind to Obama at this point before the election, he nevertheless went on to beat Republican nominee Mitt Romney. 

Biden trails Trump by larger numbers, though, with 46 percent to Trump's 50 percent. The margin of error for that poll is at plus or minus 3 percent. Meanwhile, a Fox News poll from December 2011 showed Obama with 44 percent support compared to Romney's 42 percent.

The piece mentions multiple Biden campaign staffers referring to 2011 as part of their narrative for the upcoming 2024 election:

"Predictions more than a year out tend to look a little different a year later," Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz said earlier this month.

"Don’t take our word for it: Gallup predicted an eight point loss for President Obama only for him to win handedly a year later," Munoz added. 

And Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriquez wrote in a recent fundraising email that "the year is 2011. It's one-year out from Election Day, and the New York Times has just put out polling showing President Obama trailing significantly in battleground states."

But a trip down memory lane reminds us that while Obama was saddled in late 2011 with unfavorable polling a year before his re-election, his standing was not as troublesome as the deficits Biden currently faces.

We've seen this narrative before--just last week, in fact--to do with the Thanksgiving holidays. As we covered at the time, the X account for Biden-Harris HQ put out a thread of responses that were meant to debunk "Crazy MAGA Nonsense This Thanksgiving." This came out even as Americans hoped to avoid politics for the holiday and as Biden and First Lady Jill Biden offered what was supposed to be a "unifying message" for Americans.

That same X account took Joe Concha's very clear mockery of that very narrative and shared it as if it were some sort of positive endorsement of the thread.

Again, a lot could still change between now and Election Day 2024. Trump and Biden still have to win the nominations, and is facing numerous criminal trials. Trump is currently leading by +1.9 against Biden according to RealClearPolitics, while he was leading by +2.6 just earlier this week. But again, Biden is not where he wants to be, especially for an incumbent president and pointing to previous years won't exactly help him.