Even Kamala Harris now viewed more favorably than Joe Biden as Dems panic over dismal ‘24 polls
Americans may have found something they like less than a hypothetical Kamala Harris presidency — four more years of Joe Biden.
A new poll out Monday shows the veep’s favorability rating inching above the commander-in-chief’s for the first time, as reports indicate growing alarm inside the White House about Biden’s prospects in 2024.
The Monmouth University survey showed the 81-year-old Biden receiving just a 34% approval rating — the lowest in the poll’s tracking of his administration and down 20 percentage points from its peak in April 2021 — and a 61% disapproval rating.
Harris fares little better, but her 35% approval rating and 57% disapproval rating are positively glowing marks compared to her boss.
Most concerning for Biden’s re-election campaign is his 24% approval among independents, down 14 points from July.
In addition, more than two-thirds of Americans disapprove of the president’s handling of the twin crises that have bedeviled his administration: immigration (69%) and inflation (68%).
“The Biden administration keeps touting their infrastructure investments and a host of positive economic indicators,” said Patrick Murray of the Monmouth University Polling Institute. “Those data points may be factual, but most Americans are still smarting from higher prices caused by post-pandemic inflation. This seems to be what’s driving public opinion. There is political danger in pushing a message that basically tells people their take on their own situation is wrong.”
The survey includes a rebuke of the president’s campaign message that life is getting better for Americans thanks to “Bidenomics” — with 69% feeling that the country is on the wrong track and just 20% believing things are trending in the right direction.
In public, Biden has breezily dismissed his dismal numbers, especially in a hypothetical rematch of the 2020 contest against Republican rival Donald Trump.
However, reports indicate a different story behind closed doors.
“You don’t read the polls,” the president told reporters Nov. 9. “I’ll give you 10 polls, eight of them I’m beating him [Trump] in those states. Eight of them. You guys only do two.”
Eleven days later, following the annual Thanksgiving turkey pardon, Biden complained to his closest aides during a meeting that his poll numbers were too low and he wanted to know what was being done about it, the Washington Post reported Monday.
The outlet added that the president and first lady Jill Biden have recently “grown upset” at the lack of improvement in Biden’s standing. The Monmouth poll did not survey a Trump-Biden matchup, but the RealClearPolitics polling average showed the 45th president leading his successor by 3.5 percentage points in the popular vote as of Monday.
The bad feeling has spread to other Democrats, with the party trying to take back control of the House of Representatives next year and expand its majority in the Senate despite an unfavorable map.
In Michigan, for example, Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin has told allies she fears she won’t win the state’s open Senate seat if Biden is atop the ticket, the Washington Post added.
There have even been times when Biden himself has expressed apparent ambivalence about seeking a second term.
“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running,” he said at a fundraising event near Boston earlier this month, before adding: “We cannot let him win.”
The very next day, Biden told reporters that “probably 50” Democrats could defeat the 77-year-old Trump before insisting “I have to run” and vowing not to leave the race if Trump somehow drops out.
Part of the issue appears to be the administration’s points of emphasis. In the Monmouth poll, just 31% said Biden was giving enough attention to the issues that were most important to them and their families, while 65% said he was not.
“We’re not where we want to be,” Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg told the Washington Post. “Some of our coalition is wandering and we need to go get them back.”
“I think a lot of activists feel that everyone they know is happy with the president,” added former Rep. Conor Lamb (D-Pa.). “They’re not understanding who is in the majority of the country that is dissatisfied and what to do to change their minds.
“A lot of us are looking to the campaign for leadership on how we’re going to overcome that together and what role they need us to play.”
Biden allies attempted to do just that in early November, laying out their game plan in a Sheraton conference room in Chicago.
Instead of being reassured, many of those present — including allies of Barack Obama’s two campaigns — were left unnerved by a presentation lacking in details and substance, New York Magazine reported.
Former Obama campaign manager David Axelrod has been the leading pessimist, describing Biden’s polling numbers as “very, very dark,” and giving the president a 50-50 chance, at best, of re-election.
Biden allies, led by former White House chief of staff Ron Klain, have warned that Democrats who want to defeat Trump have no choice but to go with the incumbent next year.
They’ve also taken solace in their fundraising haul — which is expected to achieve their goal of $67 million for the final quarter of this year, according to the Washington Post — and a series of off-year election wins for Democrats in Kentucky, New Jersey and Virginia.
“Time and again, Biden beats expectations. Happened in 2020, happened in 2022, happened on Tuesday night,” communications director Michael Tyler told reporters at the time.
“You see days, weeks, months of breathless predictions about how terrible things are gonna be for Joe Biden,” he added, “followed by an election day with historic victories.”
The Monmouth University poll surveyed 803 adults from Nov. 30 to Dec. 4 and has a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4.8 percentage points.
