5 takeaways from new polls that reveal Biden’s challenges and Trump’s potential victory path

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN

(CNN) — A big night for Democrats Tuesday in state races only highlighted the struggles Joe Biden faces in 2024 following polls suggesting he’s far less popular than his party.

The new surveys are again casting doubt on the rationale of a second term for Biden, who turns 81 later this month and is losing support from critical younger and minority voters even as Democrats running in 2023 elections hit on issues that resonate.

The topline of a new CNN/SSRS survey of registered voters published Tuesday shows ex-President Donald Trump leading Biden 49% to 45%, which is bad enough for the president. But a deep dive into the data reveals alarming challenges for Biden and bolsters the impression that despite the mayhem and mismanagement of Trump’s first term, the GOP front-runner has a strong chance at a second.

The new poll reveals deep public discontent with Biden’s job performance at a time when his economic optimism is failing to connect with a disgruntled nation weary of high prices. The survey exposes cracks in Biden’s multiethnic Democratic coalition and a lack of confidence in his leadership in a war-torn world. Most damagingly, the data show that just a quarter of Americans believe he has the stamina and sharpness to serve as president.

This survey follows New York Times/Siena College polling over the weekend that show significant leads for Trump in most of the swing states likely to decide the 2024 election. That triggered another round of agonizing among Democrats over whether Biden should have passed on a run for a second term – even if no realistic challenger for the nomination has emerged in a new generation of the party.

Biden’s poor polling contrasts with a strong election night for Democrats on Tuesday when voters in Ohio enshrined abortion rights in the state constitution and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear won a second term in Kentucky, a deep red state, CNN projected. Democrats picked up the Virginia state House to take full control of the commonwealth’s legislature – a blow to GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin.

This could mean polls are underplaying Democrats’ resilience under Biden, as they did in last year’s midterms when a Republican red wave was averted. “Voters vote. Polls don’t. Now let’s go win next year,” Biden posted on X seeking credit for Tuesday’s results and to inject momentum into his 2024 campaign.

There is another interpretation of Tuesday’s results, however. Biden appears to be less popular than some of his party’s policies and some of its other candidates, raising the possibility that someone else would be better at keeping the Democratic coalition together next year.

Four years ago, Biden presented himself as a calm, serious, sincere leader who could bring back a sense of normality after a murderous pandemic ruined the economy and Trump threatened to tear the nation apart. But that restoration has been elusive as a resilient economy still hasn’t given many Americans the relief they hoped for. A poisoned political climate Biden diagnosed as reeling with “racism, nativism, fear, and demonization” in his inaugural address seems like it actually may have worsened nearly three years later.

But the biggest difference between now and then is that Biden is not being judged compared to Trump and the chaos he wreaked. Biden is being evaluated by voters on his political record, against his promises and for his personal demeanor. And a year out from the next election, the country is not getting what it wants.

The standard defense of Biden’s reelection hopes among top Democrats, who CNN reported Tuesday are seeing a silver lining in the polls, is that voters will again perceive a glaring comparison between Biden’s battle to reclaim the soul of America and his extremist anti-democratic predecessor’s vow to claim a second term he’d devote to “retribution” against his enemies. Assuming Trump is the Republican nominee, there may be some truth to the argument. Trump, despite his rants on social media, hasn’t been a cacophonous presence in the lives of most Americans’ daily lives for years. The country did not get to see, for example, the display of petulance, fury and bile that he served up from the witness stand of his off-camera civil fraud trial in New York on Monday. Once he’s back in the public eye every day, the behavior that alienated vast swathes of the critical suburbs in swing states could begin to again diminish Trump’s poll numbers.

Biden was also far more successful than most pundits expected in framing last year’s midterm elections as a referendum on what he calls the “MAGA-extremism” of Trump’s GOP – a charge that could become even more resonant if the ex-president tops the ticket. And the political impact of a potential future president who faces four criminal trials – several of which are scheduled to take place in election year – cannot be predicted. After all, Americans have never had to consider the possibility that one of the two major parties could pick someone who could be a convicted felon as its nominee for commander in chief. A year is a long time, and there’s also the possibility that Americans’ perceptions of the economy could improve in the next year and boost Biden’s standing.

But Tuesday’s CNN poll in particular carries some alarming warnings at this point for the president’s reelection hopes, which means the 2024 race is likely to be far more layered than the simple one-on-one match-up Biden’s camp envisages. Here are five dynamics that could spell challenges for Biden.

The age issue

Biden’s age and capacity to do the job of president is dominating voter concerns at the same time as he is failing to forge bonds with younger voters who are critical to Democratic turnout models. Biden, with his subdued, halting rhetoric hardly exudes gusto. Age, personal tragedy, and the burdens of office mean he’s unrecognizable from the beaming, back-slapping senator of 15 years ago. While the president has launched daring foreign policy trips into war zones in Ukraine and Israel, the public isn’t getting the impression of vigor, even though it’s arguable that Biden is in trimmer physical shape than Trump.

The ex-president, who is himself 77, doesn’t suffer from the same perceptions. His egotistical, manic energy seems to have convinced voters that he’s physically fit for office, even if his stream of consciousness public statements are often incoherent upon deeper examination. The CNN poll finds that 25% of voters believe Biden has the stamina and sharpness to serve effectively, while 53% say Trump does. And the worries about Biden are bipartisan. Only about half of Democrats believe that Biden has the requisite stamina and sharpness.

If age is really a barrier for many voters, there is little the president can do about it. He’ll turn 82 after the election and would be 86 before the end of a possible second term. The CNN poll encapsulates this potential dilemma for voters. Will they have to consider picking a president who only a quarter of them think is up to the job just to avoid the uproar, democratic erosion and anger a new Trump term would bring?

Economic perceptions are hurting Biden

The president’s strategy of highlighting strong job and economic growth numbers and his historic infrastructure package – sold under the umbrella of “Bidenomics” – is a currently a failure. A sense of malaise, not reflected in many economic indicators, is nevertheless conjuring voter nostalgia for the Trump economy. In The New York Times survey of battleground states, Trump led Biden by 10 points in Nevada, by 6 in Georgia, by 5 in Arizona and by 5 in Michigan. Across states surveyed, only 19% viewed the economy as excellent or good.

While Democrats hope that high interest rates will abate next year and ease the pressure on families struggling with car loans, mortgages and credit card debt, Biden is already on the edge of a precipice on the economy. And given his national approval rating in the CNN poll of only 39%, any economic downturn next year would be disastrous for him. This feeling that he’s lost his grip on the economy comes despite Biden’s drive to reform it on behalf of working Americans, his plan to revive manufacturing, to create an American semi-conductor chip industry, a push to lower prescription drug prices and massive investments in green energy. While inflation has fallen sharply since post-pandemic highs, Americans still complain of high prices for essentials like eggs and milk, creating a disconnect with Biden’s upbeat assessments of the economy.

Former Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the White House’s economic strategy is not merely falling short, it’s actively hurting Biden. “I think the president’s messaging on the economy, of telling people that they are doing better than they are doing, is not going to work,” the former Ohio lawmaker, who has said that Biden should not run for another term, said Tuesday. “I wish that would stop. … I hear what people are saying. Bacon is more expensive, gas is more expensive, groceries are more expensive, rent is more expensive. We need to focus on their concerns.”

A world spinning out of control

At a time when the world may look like it’s in chaos – during Israel’s war against Hamas, Russia’s onslaught in Ukraine and China’s challenge to US global power – Biden’s self-defined foreign policy expertise is counting for little. Voters see Trump as a stronger leader, suggesting that bluster and threats are more convincing than Biden’s nuanced approach. The CNN poll showed that only 36% view the president as an effective global leader while 48% think the same of Trump, despite a tumultuous term in which he trashed US allies and cozied up to tyrants.

Furthermore, Biden’s positions abroad may be hurting him at home. Polls show that the president is shedding support among younger voters – a cohort that has been critical of his staunch support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has killed thousands of civilians in response to last month’s Hamas terror attacks in Israel. The CNN survey found that 47% of those voters back Biden while 48% back Trump. In 2020, Biden won that demographic by 21 points nationally, according to exit polls, although those who actually turn out to vote are not the same as the registered voters.

History doesn’t favor Biden

Assurances from Democratic leaders that the tide will inevitably turn in Biden’s favor because of the advantages of incumbency also ignore the fact that his approval ratings are running behind predecessors who won a second term. The analogy is often made to Bill Clinton and Barack Obama’s reelection bids that defied early political troubles.

But the 42nd president was at 52% in November 1995 and the 44th was at 46% in 2011. Biden is languishing at 39%, two points below Trump’s mark a year before he lost the 2020 election and ahead of only one-term Jimmy Carter. Politics has become even more polarized in the years since Obama and Clinton won second terms, so Biden’s approval ratings are perhaps bound to be lower. But the comparison reflects the political test Biden faces, raising the question of whether he has the campaigning skill and energy to rebound.

A sense of malaise could open a path for Trump

The most ominous takeaway from the CNN poll is that conditions are potentially falling into place that could plausibly lead to the return to power of a twice-impeached former president with autocratic tendencies. The public is deeply unhappy – and would seemingly prefer any other matchup.

CNN found that 72% of all Americans say things in the country today are going badly and a broad majority have thought so all the months that Biden has been in office. Negative perceptions of the economy are likely to further worsen the public mood. And Democratic voters seem far less engaged and enthusiastic than Republicans. The CNN survey, for example, finds that 71% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters are extremely motivated to vote in next year’s presidential election versus 61% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters. And Biden’s struggles are depriving Trump’s GOP primary rivals of the argument that he’s so compromised that he couldn’t beat the president in 2024.

Moreover, Biden is running at far worse levels than he was among vital sectors of the Democratic coalition than he was in 2020. He leads Trump among Black voters 73% to 23% but won this cohort by 75 points in 2020. Latino voters favor Biden over Trump by only four points compared to 33 points in the 2020 election. The former president is winning independent voters by four points in the CNN poll but lost them to Biden by 13 points in 2020. Many political analysts consider that such numbers are unlikely to be repeated in a general election when more established patterns might reassert themselves. But the big risk for the president is if disillusioned young and minority voters don’t show up at the polls and threaten the tiny margins by which he won key swing states in 2020.

Despair among voters with economic conditions, a general feeling of national despondency, and sense that events are spiraling out of control abroad always spell trouble for incumbents. And history suggests that a combination of such factors – with voter cynicism and a loss of hope – provide the conditions in which demagogues offering strongman leadership can prosper.

That’s what Trump is counting on. And it’s what Biden needs to fix.

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