President Joe Biden has low job approval ratings, lackluster Democratic enthusiasm, will turn 82 shortly after the next presidential election, and most voters say they don’t want him to run for a second term.
Nevertheless, that is exactly what Biden announced he will do Tuesday morning — saying he needs to “finish the job” with another term in office. And the Democratic Party has all but cleared the field for him to do so.
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Not a single one of the Democrats’ 264 members of Congress or 24 governors went so far as to set up an exploratory committee to contemplate a campaign for the 2024 nomination or a primary challenge to Biden.
Biden repeatedly delayed his planned reelection campaign launch and still managed to be the first and, so far, the only major Democratic presidential candidate with substantial electoral experience. His sole challengers of any notoriety are self-help guru Marianne Williamson, a minor candidate in 2020 who did make some appearances on the debate stage alongside Biden, and Robert Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer and activist whose Tucker Carlson Tonight appearances exceed the number of public offices he has held.
An NBC News poll released on the eve of Biden’s reelection announcement found that only 26% wanted him to seek a second term, while 70% did not. His age was cited by 69% of those who didn’t want him to run again, with 48% listing it as a major reason and 21% saying it was at least a minor reason.
This isn’t far off from the results of a recent Associated Press/NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll that found just 26% of Americans wanted Biden to run again, including fewer than half of Democrats. Two-thirds of voters in last year’s midterm elections did not want Biden to mount a reelection bid, according to exit polls. A New York Times/Siena College poll last summer found that 94% of Democrats aged 30 and under preferred a different nominee.
Majorities of Democrats do say they would support Biden if he was the nominee. In the Associated Press poll, 41% say they would definitely back him, and 40% say they probably would. That still leaves nearly a fifth up for grabs in what could be a competitive presidential race.
Just 42.6% approve of Biden’s performance in office, while 53.9% disapprove, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. NBC News had his approval rating at 41%, with Reuters and CNBC pegging it at 39%. The RealClearPolitics average has 64.6% saying the country is on the wrong track compared to 25% who say it is moving in the right direction.
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Even with GDP growing, unemployment at or near record lows, and inflation showing signs of subsiding, Biden’s economic approval rating stands at 37.8%, while 57.9% disapprove, according to RealClearPolitics. Reuters and CNBC found 34% approved of his economic stewardship, and a Fox News poll last month had 35%. A Harris poll indicated a 61% economic disapproval rating.
Finally, Biden is showing some signs of slowing down as the oldest president in U.S. history from the moment he took office. Democrats know this. “The presidency is a monstrously taxing job and the stark reality is the president would be closer to 90 than 80 at the end of a second term, and that would be a major issue,” David Axelrod, once a top adviser to former President Barack Obama, told the New York Times last year during a period of Democratic anxiety about Biden’s future viability.
By most standards, Biden should have a difficult time winning reelection. Democrats are plunging ahead with him as their near-certain standard-bearer anyway. There are a few reasons for this.
Biden won the 2020 presidential election and helped Democrats minimize their losses in last year’s midterms, actually picking up a seat in the Senate. Biden was old and dealing with an enthusiasm gap when he won his first term. He was old and had low approval ratings, especially on the economy, with inflation running at a 41-year high when Democrats avoided the red wave last year.
One reason for this is Democrats are confident that however unpopular Biden is, former President Donald Trump is more polarizing. What Democrats lack in enthusiasm for Biden, they believe they can more than make up for in fear and anger over Trump, as well as the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade.
While most voters do not want Biden to run again, neither do they want a Biden-Trump rematch. Last time around, Biden won voters who disliked both candidates.
If Trump is not the nominee, Democrats believe they can effectively remake any Republican in his image through the “MAGA” attack line. This is especially true of Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), arguably a more dedicated culture warrior than Trump.
If DeSantis emerges from the Republican primaries with the nomination, he will only have done so after months of being beaten up by Trump. Some of Trump’s attacks, such as painting DeSantis as someone who will cut entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, support arguments Biden and the Democrats were sure to make anyway. Others will drive up DeSantis’s negatives with Republicans and possibly get GOP voters to stay home.
That’s the kind of nasty primary fight that Democrats are hoping to avoid. Ted Kennedy challenged President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Kennedy succeeded only in further bloodying Carter ahead of the general election. Eugene McCarthy stunned Lyndon Johnson with a stronger-than-expected New Hampshire primary showing in 1968. LBJ dropped out, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey won the nomination but went on to lose that November to Richard Nixon.
Many Democrats don’t want to further weaken Biden before the 2024 general election. That could be enough to deter Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) and others.
It’s also true that the Democrats didn’t have many alternatives to Biden. Vice President Kamala Harris is not more popular than the sitting president and did not perform well in her own 2020 campaign for the White House. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has had to deal with multiple controversies on his watch, including a toxic train derailment in a battleground state.
The picture is nevertheless muddled. Republicans held the Senate in what was otherwise a good midterm election for Democrats in 2018. The GOP gained House seats in 2020 and were a pair of Georgia runoffs from holding the Senate. They won the House in 2022.
Trump beat Hillary Clinton with a huge free media advantage and a more enthusiastic base. He came within 43,000 votes in three states from being reelected in a pandemic with high lockdown-induced unemployment. DeSantis, who is nearly 37 years younger than Biden, would be an even bigger wildcard. Many economists still predict a recession sometime this year, which could hurt Biden’s chances.
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Democrats are betting that the Biden they know is safer than a candidate they don’t.
Time will tell whether that calculation proves correct.
