After recently launching his reelection campaign, President Joe Biden’s poll numbers are already underwater, according to a survey released over the weekend.
The ABC poll released Sunday found that 63 percent of American adults do not believe Biden, 80, possesses the “mental sharpness” to perform his duties as president, representing a 9-percent increase year-over-year. About 32 percent believe otherwise, and 5 percent have no opinion, the survey found.
A hypothetical 2024 general election matchup shows that Biden is falling behind Trump, the poll shows, which should be a red flag for Democrats. Some 44 percent of respondents said they would “probably” or “definitely” vote for Trump while only 38 percent said the same thing for Biden. Some 12 percent are undecided, the survey revealed.
“When the undecideds are asked how they lean, it’s 49-42 percent, Trump-Biden,” an accompanying ABC News article stated.
The president also trails Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has not officially declared his 2024 candidacy. Some 42 percent said they would definitely or probably vote for the Florida governor, while 37 percent said they would vote for Biden, and 21 percent were undecided.
Because DeSantis and Trump are performing well against Biden in the poll, it suggests that Biden’s challenge is not about only about the perceptions and politics around Trump—but about Biden himself.
“Notably, among those who say Trump should face criminal charges in the investigations into whether he illegally tried to overturn the 2020 election results, 18 percent are inclined to vote for him over Biden anyway,” ABC said, citing the poll. “Seventy-one percent in this group take Biden.”
What’s more, Biden’s job approval rating stands at 36 percent, which is down from 42 percent in February. His disapproval stands at 56 percent, including 47 percent who “strongly” disapprove of the job he’s doing.
‘Just Brutal’
Over the weekend, some Democratic strategists and mainstream media figures sounded the alarm about Biden’s poll numbers. Current ABC host George Stephanopoulos, a former White House press secretary under the Clinton administration, admitted that “this poll is just brutal for President Biden.”
ABC’s Rick Klein responded: “Absolutely, George.” Citing the network’s poll, he added, “You talked earlier about that record low approval rating for President Biden, it’s actually six points down just since February.”
“You see real weaknesses in the coalition that powered Joe Biden to the presidency back in 2020. Biden carried independents by 13 points against Donald Trump. He is now trailing Trump by 9 points among those same voters,” Klein also said.
“He carried black voters by 75 points in 2020. He is up just 35,” he continued. “That may sound like a lot, but the fact of the matter is, in modern politics, that is not the kind of number that a Democrat needs to be victorious.”
Weighing in later on Sunday’s ABC News broadcast, former Democrat National Committee Chairwoman Donna Brazile said that the numbers “kept me up, and I thought they should wake up and look at those numbers. It’s sobering in the sense that the coalition that elected Joe Biden, with the historic numbers that we saw in 2020, that coalition right now is fragmented. That should concern them.”
Amid the concerns about Biden’s age, the president has said that shouldn’t be a factor. If he’s elected to another term, he'll be 86 years old upon departing in January 2029.
“I can’t even say the number. It doesn’t register with me,“ Biden told reporters in April. ”One of the things that people are going to find out is, they’re going to see a race, and they’re going to judge whether or not I have it or don’t have it.”
In the poll, some 64 percent of Americans believe Trump is in good enough physical condition to serve. Another 54 percent think Trump is mentally fit to serve as president.
The poll comes two weeks after Biden announced in a video that he and Vice President Kamala Harris would seek re-election. He faces at least two major Democrat challengers: environmental lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and author Marianne Williamson.
The survey has margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, and it was conducted by landline and cellular telephone from April 28 to May 3, 2023, in English and Spanish, among 1,006 adults. The partisan divisions are 26–25–41 for Democrats, Republicans, and independents, respectively.
