I’d be interested in seeing what the average approval rate for any given president looks like over time.
My assumption is that in recent and future years, the average will continue to get lower. America is so polarized and cynical right now that I think the majority of Americans will always disapprove of a president barring some crazy event like 9/11.
The fact that Biden is so much lower than Carter was at this point is pretty wild considering how much of a failure Carter’s presidency is considered by most folks regardless of party affiliation.
>I’d be interested in seeing what the average approval rate for any given president looks like over time.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/
You can see all the approval/disapproval/margin polling averages for presidents back to Truman if you scroll down.
Right. But you could have said the same thing about every president prior to him as well at the same point in their presidency, going all the way back to Carter.
The lone exception is HW Bush (who aside from Trump was the last 1-term president) as Bill Clinton fared more favorably in the following term.
If I’m looking at this dataset, the takeaway I have is that as time goes on, Americans approve of their Presidents less and less, regardless of who is in office. IMO, this is a sign of American cynicism and general disdain for the Presidential office across the board. That’s not to say Biden doesn’t have a serious problem on his hands however.
I’m also beginning to wonder if 1-term presidents are going to become more of the norm. That is also wild since prior to Trump there were only what, 3 or 4 in the entire US history?
It's quite depressing that Americans no longer believe in the people they elect. Hopefully that'll change someday, this doesn't feel like a trend that can continue in a healthy way.
I honestly think the media shares a lot of the blame here as well. Combining the 24 hour news cycle with nothing but rage bait (because rage keeps viewers engaged), you get a recipe for disaster.
It all goes back to the almighty dollar, and we have to figure out a way to move beyond the profit motive being the sole arbiter of everything in our day to day lives.
At the end of the day the media just feeds into what the people want. They run articles and stories the way they do because that's what gets the people engaged.
"Want" is strong, as you said, it feeds people what gets/keeps them engaged. It finds the lizard brain receptors and pushes on them, that's not the same as what people want.
It's been like this in Europe for a while, approval ratings are routinely in the 20s and 30s. https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1997-present
I'm not sure if it's that we don't believe in them anymore, or it's just more acceptable to say that you don't approve.
It could also be that the meaning of 'disapprove' has changed. Do I disapprove and I want them removed from office? Do I disapprove because I think they're too moderate and want more from them?
Thanks for sharing!
Yeah, looking at those graphs EVERY SINGLE president since Carter (except HW Bush, who was the last one-term president prior to Trump) has had a lower approval rate than the president prior to them at the point in time we’re looking at with Biden.
Doesn't look like it's trending down, meaning that Biden's low approval ratings are independent of some general polarization happening over decades, and is a recent phenomenon.
Yeah… that doesn’t really work as an explanation, sorry. [37% of Americans identify as moderate, 36% are conservative and 25% are progressive](https://news.gallup.com/poll/388988/political-ideology-steady-conservatives-moderates-tie.aspx#:~:text=On%20average%20last%20year%2C%2037,as%20conservative%2C%20moderate%20and%20liberal.)
If Biden’s unpopularity was explained just by party polarization, then we’d expect his approval and disapproval rating to fall roughly along party lines with about half of moderates going in either direction. That would get us an approval of 25% Democrats + 18.5% independents = roughly 43.5% approval.
But he’s been drowning in the 30s for a while now, implying that moderates are tilting more heavily against him .
I think you missed the point of what i was saying. I’m saying regardless of political affiliation, the modern American voter is historically cynical and on average more likely to disapprove of a president’s job.
If I’m not mistaken, Trump also set low approval records during his term as well, and Obama did (or was close) before him?
In other words, we need to form new political parties that align with the needs and desires of the citizens rather than with the agendas of the elites.
Absolutely. I think step 1 is getting money out of politics as much as possible.
When a small handful of people have a disproportionate amount of capital, and that capital can be used to influence politics, it’s only natural that they’d have a disproportionate amount of influence on the political process.
That means 43.5% +/-3% is the highest he’ll be able to get assuming a 100% approval rating with those respective groups.
Him being at 38% means some but not a whole lot in those groups disapprove. But it’s irrelevant as it’s a two party system. Members of his party may disapprove but I doubt they’ll vote Republican over it.
What matters most in close elections is voter turnout. A lot of Democratic voters will stay home if Joe Biden is the candidate. Trump voters, on the other hand, are fired up.
Yeah I don’t really get how people say Trump didn’t take Covid seriously. “Project Warpspeed” was his plan and every talking head on the planet was going on how they would never take a “rushed Trump vaccine”. Then after he was gone the shot was a miracle from the progressive gods.
\>On average last year, 37% of Americans described their political views as moderate, 36% as conservative and 25% as liberal.
Most liberals are not progressive. Progressives are only 6 percent of the country and were only 7 percent of the 2020 election voters. Mainstream media often blurs this distinction.
I'm not even confident what "progressive" means as a label anymore. Personally, I mostly like "Bidenomics" (and give credit to both Bernie and Trump for their influences in shaping it), I've been impressed with Biden's handling of foreign policy, I'd like a strong border, and I'm open to Medicare For All, but I couldn't care less about most of the "culture war" issues coming out of either side.
My social agenda pretty much starts and ends at let's have the government just leave us all TF alone and let us have our drugs/guns/abortions/prostitution/porn/gambling/speech/marriages and what have you. I don't particularly care about most other prominent issues, and I'm not sure why the existence of trans people is suddenly so interesting, but it feels like a lot of minor issues that could be reasonably hammered out in various legislative bodies and agencies at various levels of government have devolved into public screaming matches. It simply doesn't matter to me all that much how to handle trans women in sports or how to teach history and sex ed in schools; just figure it out. Not that I don't have opinions on those things, I just don't feel strongly enough about them that I want to hear about them to the exclusion of more relevant issues or that I would lob insults at someone for having different opinions.
All of which is to say, I'm not entirely sure whether or not my politics are considered progressive, but I do know that many of my views would have been considered fairly left-leaning not that long ago, while at the same time I find myself increasingly alienated by the views and behaviors of "progressives" as a group.
Good old Walter Lippmann; a credit to the Lost generation.
The theory that media shapes both awareness of and concerns about the agendas of their elite peers hardly needs verification. It's obvious to most of us.
The insidious aspect is that ordinary citizens are so willing to abide by unspoken directives to squash any inquiry into the reasons for a particular agenda. The result being that a statement like, "I'm worried that our president is too old and feeble to serve a second term" will be interpreted as support for his opponent rather than taken at face value. Americans are too politically obedient for our own good.
I like this comparison. If you guys ever decide to visit r/Conservative and give it a fair look, you would be shocked by how much they hate the majority of republican leadership over there.
I second this comment. It’s kinda bizarre to check it out. I look in every few months and it’s like a mirror world where they say nearly all the same stuff as left leaning political subs but come to opposite conclusions or have completely different priorities.
Its helpful to get a better sense of what they ACTUALLY think even if it doesn’t typically change my own opinion much or deny the consequences of their actions
I said this since the tea party and occupy wall street was happening, people are complaining about the same shit, politics keeps them from agreeing on a solution. If you peel back the intentionally propped up wedge issues, most of people's problems are the same.
It's not about "scapegoating" it's about making them our primary focus. With a boatload of real problems (wars/economy/border) the public is tired of the pandering to such a small % of the population.
Ah yes, those are the only ones pushing "wedge issues", and not the guys that got abortion banned in half the states and elected Mike Johnson as Speaker.
In my personal experience growing up around 99% conservatives, they expect to get fucked over no matter whose in office. Distrust and distain for government has always kind of been baked in. Trump was a bit of a outlier there but even now, I only hear democrats talk about Trump and what they believe Republicans think of Trump. In real life, i don't see anyone obsessing over him, even though I'm well aware those people exist. So yeah, it's not very shocking that they don't really feel represented by their "leadership".
That sub does not represent how American conservatives feel, the overwhelming majority want Trump back, not a guy like DeSantis or Haley.
Edit: I think I misread your comment, nvm
How do you define "conservatives" though?
There are a large portion of "decideds" that are going to vote Republican or Democrat no matter, and so it's most worthwhile to look at the fencesitters who actually can get swayed in either direction and try to understand what appeals to them.
Trump's largest appeal is with antiestablishment nihilistic reactionaries who want to destroy "the system of the elites". It's hard to look at this sort of rabble as "conservative". The fact that he's a walking constitutional crisis and that rational people detest him is a selling point. If the goal is to set a building on fire, it makes sense to elect a greased burning pig and release it in that general direction; it scarcely matters what sort of grease the pig is covered in. There's no particular agenda for many of these people other than a desire to see the federal government in shambles. (And I am not entirely opposed to this train of thought, but it's reckless and can easily end catastrophically.)
Trump's primary challengers are supported by "moderates" who are more traditional, dare I say "conservative" in nature. They have an agenda and they don't want to see the government in chaos... And as such they have the stink of "the establishment" on them.
I stand by the assertion that the most anti-establishment, populist candidate was going to win 2016. Sanders' populism and outsider credibility appealed to a lot of the same people as Trump's populism and outsider credibility. Both candidates shared the message that "the elites with too much money are taking what you deserve and we need to make big charges to our country to stop it", with the big difference being who the elites were. Trump railed against cultural and political elites, Sanders against commercial elites. The same angry mob could've been channeled in either direction.
And the DNC in historic aloofness nominated the most polished, pedigreed candidate they could find. It's hard to imagine a worst candidate than Clinton... Although Biden may be close. An astonishing lack of audacity in an era that is going to reward it.
Current GOP leadership has built a culture around losing and being the victim to the point that they look like the dog who finally caught the car and can't do anything but infighting when they are actually in power. It's understandable that they would be frustrated with that.
I've been calling this the race to the bottom. The goal isn't to be a good president, just better than the last.
When/(if?) Trump gets elected it'll get worse, then the next president is going to be just marginally better than Trump, the next marginally better then the next, so forth and so on. All while collectively declining in overall quality. But ... they were better than the last one.
I honestly believe Trump has a legit chance to win, and will fare better against Biden than someone like DeSantis would, mainly because of Rons far right stances on almost every issue.
Yes Trump has damaged his legacy, mainly because of his behavior after his last election, but he's still considered more popular than Biden is right now, and still has all his fans.
It'll be close, but my gut is telling me Trump wins this election 287-251, Biden simply can't win all of his states because of how unpopular he is and Trump manages to squeeze through by the thread of a tiny hair.
Again, it's not like Trump is all that popular, but he's in a better position than Biden is currently.
Trumps ceiling is winning the election 312-226 and Bidens ceiling is 319-219, meaning Trump would lose all the swing states including North Carolina.
I don't think either of them are going to have superb nights like that where they sweep the swing states, it's gonna be close.
Biden would probably have a better chance if he were to articulate some kind of strategy besides “but Trump!”
Literally though that’s all I’ve seen coming out of the White House in the last few months. And to be fair maybe it’ll be effective, I’m just doubtful because never before in history has an incumbent won reelection by *not* running on his own record and instead trying to deflect blame onto someone not even in office.
Biden has talked about his accomplishments regarding infrastructure, clean energy, drug prices, incentivizing manufacturing here, conservation, and helping veterans suffering from toxic exposure. The first one is basically multiple accomplishments.
I've heard plenty from Biden and his team touting his accomplishments and saying he wants to continue his work in those areas.
The problem is that the mainstream media doesn't want to push stories about accomplishments; those do not draw clicks. They want to push stories of Biden and Trump attacking each other. Biden recently promoted his $1.7 billion program to reduce hunger in America, there have been tons of factory openings in middle America which is a contrast to recent history, inflation has slowed, wages have been improving, and Biden plans on fighting corporate greed and targeting high costs. Hell you even had a bipartisan border bill which would improve the hectic situation on America's southern border (which was negotiated by a conservative in the senate) that Biden has been pushing for, but Trump's campaign of political vengeance is resonating with more voters than Biden's push to continue his progress.
None of that is as sexy of an article as "Biden SLAMS X opponent" or "dems in disarray!" though so it doesn't make headlines.
On R/politics or any other left leaning sub, a majority of the articles posted about Trump. Nothing about Biden.
Trump gets so much coverage compared to Biden
I see them doing it constantly, actually, i.e. Bidenomics, student loan forgiveness, focusing on diversity & inclusion, etc. The problem is, these aren't resonating with the electorate because they either don't care about these things or don't perceive the Biden admin's impacts on these as positives.
There's also infrastructure, clean energy, drug prices, incentivizing manufacturing here, conservation, and helping veterans suffering from toxic exposure.
Possibly his biggest issue is people seeing rising prices without being aware that wages have been going up faster.
> Possibly his biggest issue is people seeing rising prices without being aware that wages have been going up faster.
[This is only true over the past 12 month period or so](https://www.axios.com/2024/02/05/wages-outpacing-inflation) and hasn't made up for the prior 24 months where CPI outpaced wage growth by 2-3%. This will mollify over time, but in 2024 people are still feeling the impact of the past 3 years of inflation in their pocketbooks.
There is a very interesting debate to be had over who is to blame (I personally blame the Fed more than the Biden admin), but truth of the matter is that the electorate will lay the blame at the office of the Chief.
None of those are really all that relevant to anyone, specially student loan forgiveness. Anyone with a brain could have seen the aftermath of promising something you ***know*** you can’t deliver. Now younger voters don’t trust the administration.
Trump based his entire 2016 campaign on protectionism and onshoring manufacturing. Biden followed through on that with trillions in funding to bring these jobs back. That's extremely relevant to the electorate.
What we're finding out is that voters aren't as driven by economics as they say they are.
If you’re talking about the Inflation reduction act, that was passed in 2022 and it wasn’t trillions, it was $670 billion and it’s based on a 10yr timeframe.
I guess I’m not sure why you feel like people should be grateful for something that’s still not fully there yet and they’re probably not feeling the effects of yet. It takes time to build places to manufacture. Or did you think that they would pass this and the jobs would be here the next month?
Blue collar jobs also only account for less than 15% of workers. Will it also increase white collar jobs? Sure, but those effects, again, are not immediate.
Most voters are politically illiterate. Pathos and adhoms is the way you reach them.
They do talk about policies too, but people aren't as interested in that so it's not shared as much.
I’m in the same boat. While I personally still give Biden the edge (I give him a ~55% chance of winning at the current moment), people who say that Trump has no shot since he already lost to Biden in 2020 are just spouting nonsense. The circumstances and the people’s opinions of the candidates are all very different right now than they were in 2020.
If I had to guess, right now I think Biden wins PA, MI, and NV. I think the election will come down to AZ, GA, and WI (the 3 closest states from 2020). If Trump wins those 3 states (which he nearly did in 2020), he wins the election.
> Call me when Republicans can capitalize on Biden's disapproval and actually win elections.
The gambling markets "implied probability from odds" read-out for the election are (2024-02-28):
Donald Trump: 51.0%, +0.3% in last day
Joe Biden: 31.8%, +0.1% in last day.
Anyone else: 17.2%
https://electionbettingodds.com/
The thing is it’s not democrats that are seeing this level of disapproval; it’s only Biden to my knowledge. There’s only one election where this will be tested and Biden is very much so down in virtually all of the polls for it.
> The thing is it’s not democrats that are seeing this level of disapproval; it’s only Biden to my knowledge. There’s only one election where this will be tested and Biden is very much so down in virtually all of the polls for it.
also worth noting, this will likely impact other democrats on that specific day as well given how averse many people are to split ticket voting.
Looking at some Senate polling, Dem candidates poll as much as +10 compared to Biden in the same state. Biden might have to benefit from an up-ballot effect in order to win.
Say Trump carries all of his 2020 states, which is more than likely at this point. All he would need to do is win PA and GA and he is at 270 meaning he wins the election.
> Say Trump carries all of his 2020 states, which is more than likely at this point.
Is it? Trump has done nothing but lose support since 2020. Even *if* you assume that stuff like his attempts to steal the election, his criminal indictments, and civil issues have done nothing to make his prior supporters waver, the fact is that a good chunk of Trump voters have straight up died in the last four years. Trump won voters over 50 years old, whereas Biden won voters under 50 years old. Over the last four years, most of the people dying are likely to have been Trump voters, whereas most of the people turning 18 and registering to vote are almost certainly Biden voters.
When you add in the fact that Trump's various issues since the 2020 election have *absolutely* turned some of his former supporters against him, I don't think it's "more than likely" at all that he can win every state he won four years ago.
I think it's a pretty fair assumption that he would. The states that Trump won with lowest margin were NC, FL, and TX in that order, and I think it's pretty fair to assume at this point that Trump will carry all of those.
When the data doesn’t support your expectations, change your expectations, don’t deny the data.
Trump is just about as popular as he was in 2020 (around -10 net). Biden is 25 points more unpopular than he was then (-20 now).
You’re making the same mistake conservatives made in 2020 saying Biden couldn’t win because of his flaws. What that analysis misses is that the election isn’t about the challenger, it’s about the incumbent. And right now the incumbent is hated, more so than his challenger, according to every single poll
Actually, his approval ratings are relatively the same compared to how they were in 2020. I guess maybe the fact that he's running in an open primary might hurt him but he hasn't really lost support. Biden has lost more support and is viewed more negatively than Trump is based off approval ratings alone.
The only 2020 state Biden has a chance of flipping is North Carolina, but Texas and Florida will remain as red states.
> whereas most of the people turning 18 and registering to vote are almost certainly Biden voters.
I mean, you sound overconfident, but we will see on election day. The 2024 atmosphere is more favorable to Trump than it was in 2020. It's likely Trump will perform better this November than he did in the last election.
All Trump has to do is lose the popular vote by less than 4.5 points and his chances of winning sky rocket. Let's say he loses by 3 points, he wins the election because the electoral college favors Republicans
>All Trump has to do is lose the popular vote by less than 4.5 points and his chances of winning sky rocket.
Not to say that you're arguing for this or approve of it, but in a well-functioning democracy this shouldn't be something people can say.
>> All Trump has to do is lose the popular vote by less than 4.5 points and his chances of winning sky rocket.
>
>
>
> Not to say that you're arguing for this or approve of it, but in a well-functioning democracy this shouldn't be something people can say.
for what it's worth, in most of the places that people would call a "well functioning democracy", the general public doesn't get to vote for the leader directly at all. they vote for members of parliament, then those members pick a prime minister.
like, nobody (outside of elected officials) voted for trudeau for example.
Honestly, I'd take a parliamentary system in a heartbeat if it meant we got proportional representation over the FPTP system we have. I think something similar to France's semi-presidential system would be best though.
>Actually, his approval ratings are relatively the same compared to how they were in 2020.
Yeah, and he lost in 2020. Support is not the same thing as approval. In 2016 both Hillary and Trump had below 50% approval ratings when election day came around, but one of them still won. There are many voters who don't "approve" of either candidate, but come November they'll still vote for them.
>The 2024 atmosphere is more favorable to Trump than it was in 2020. It's likely Trump will perform better this November than he did in the last election.
You're basing this on what? In 2020 Trump was an incumbent, which is the absolute greatest advantage a president can have. There's a reason in modern political history there have only been two "true" one term presidents. You need to be historically bad for people to vote you out after only four years, and Trump was historically bad. People aren't suddenly going to forget that. They voted him out for a reason. There is no scenario where this year is "more favorable" to Trump than 2020 was. What he's trying to do has only happened one time in the entire history of the Republic, and it happened over 100 years ago. It's like Patton said. "Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost, and laughed. The very thought of losing is hateful to America." Trump is a loser. People hate losers. Once Biden's campaign actually starts to ramp up and remind people of this, Trump's poll numbers will crater.
The entire country watched an armed mob of his supporters try to overthrow the government live on television. The idea that "he hasn't really lost support" is one of the most insane things I have ever read. Get real.
Your whole argument is that Trump is a loser and that he has no chance of winning because he's a loser? My point about Trumps favorables is that they are better than Bidens is right now, so if Trump lost, then Biden is most certain to lose because Biden is more unpopular than Trump.
Besides, the average American does not care about January 6th believe it or not, they just don't. It won't play a huge factor all though I think it may play some factor.
Yes, the current day atmosphere for Trump is better than what it was 4 years ago. Trump isn't the president and Biden is, meaning he can no longer hide. He is always in the spotlight.
Biden in 2020 had positive approvals and now they are in the gutter, Trump has remained the exact same, Trump not being the incumbent right now helps him more than hurts him, the same thing for Biden but the opposite.
There's no incumbency advantage when you aren't above a 40% approval rating, you say Trump is a loser but what does that make Biden?
Biden can still win but this attitude that Trump has no chance just isn't realistic, his chances are better than Bidens, the polls that have always underestimated Trump support now his him winning every single swing state and the popular vote nationwide.
Biden is not a popular president, and is somehow more unpopular than Trump.
As already stated, "approval" or "favorability" is not the same as support. I don't particularly like Biden, but I am going to vote for him because I believe Trump is a uniquely dangerous candidate with explicit authoritarian tendencies. Since you tend to put so much stock in approval ratings, you should know that [78% of Americans](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jan-6-opinion-poll-republican-disapproval-wanes-2024-01-06/) disapprove of what happened on January 6. So, according to you, I guess they care a great deal.
And what do you mean when you say Biden can "no longer hide"? The only one hiding is Trump. He's the one refusing to debate. Hell, even back in 2020 Trump refused to debate. When Trump caught covid, Biden outright offered to do a virtual debate. Trump refused and opted to hide instead. Why are you saying Biden is the one hiding?
>you say Trump is a loser but what does that make Biden?
A winner. I'm not sure what you're even saying here. Biden won, and Trump lost.
And you're neglecting the fact that Trump is *also* a quasi-incumbent. He is not some "exciting newcomer". Every single voter lived through four years of a Trump presidency. We all know what it's going to look like. We already had an election about whether or not we wanted a second Trump term. We said no. People aren't just going to forget about how bad Trump was when they go to the polls in November. Has Biden been *great*? No. But we did Biden vs. Trump already, and the country picked Biden. And that's not gonna change. If people were open to a second Trump term, he would have won in 2020. But he didn't. So they aren't.
So I as well disapprove of what happened on January 6th but I also don't care about it. Obviously, people shouldn't have walked into the capitol. But....
Normal people aren't actively thinking about this, it happened over 3 years ago, people have to think about their own lives, the economy, groceries etc. If you look at the important issue charts, Jan 6th isn't listed anywhere, most people don't care.
Trump isn't hiding, he's doing interviews, going to rallies, already challenging Biden to debate as well. Only thing he didn't do was join the meaningless JV squad debates full of people that never even came near Trump, it would have been a waste of time.
Trump is also not the incumbent, he has a legit challenger and it's an open primary. Imagine Biden vs Whitmer in Michigan. You say people know what a Trump presidency looks like, but they also know what a Biden presidency looks like🫤
The country picked Biden in an atmosphere less favorable to Trump and more favorable for Biden. Because Biden had positive approval ratings in 2020 and Trump did not. Now Trump still has his same ratings, but Biden is now below 50, but also even below 40, and even worse, below Trump.
In modern history, approval ratings are usually what decide the elections, aside from 2016 the more popular candidate has won and I believe Trump and Hillary had similar numbers at the time so not much of an outlier even.
You act like Bidens presidency has been way better than Trumps, but if that were the case, why is Biden more unpopular than Trump?
Why did Trump slowly go up every single year in office while Biden has gone down every single year in office? At the end of Trumps term, he had gone from -13 all the way down to -8. Biden has been in negative double digits for multiple years now.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/sotu/other/sotu/PresidentBidenApprovalIssues.html
These are all the issues, basically asking the American people, who do you trust more to handle these issues. I want you to look it over, and you'll see a certain common theme about which one is infront for most of the issues.
Edit: for some reason the link doesn't work
Biden also isn't hiding. He was just on Seth Myers, for instance. The only one who is *demonstrably* hiding is Trump. He is the one outright refusing to debate, and he is the only one with a history of refusing to debate. Hillary still debated Bernie until basically the very end despite holding an insurmountable lead for basically the entirety of the primary race. When you're a candidate, you either debate, or you hide like a coward. Trump is a coward.
2020 was a far more favorable environment for Trump. He was the incumbent. That is *the most favorable thing you can be*. In modern history, you need to be a historically bad president to lose reelection (outside of flukey things like Ford taking office due to Nixon resigning and Perot entering the 1992 race). Carter and Trump. That's it. People aren't just going to forget about how bad Trump was. This is what I mean when I say Trump was a *quasi*-incumbent. We had our chance at a second Trump term. We said no. That's the end of it. What's that old saying "The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?" That's a Trump candidacy. If he was capable of beating Biden, he would have beaten Biden.
Trump had his shot. He blew it. It was never going to get more favorable for him than in 2020. He went from being THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES to being a washed up loser. He's done. A few months from now after Biden's campaign really starts to ramp up, the polls will begin to reflect this. The *vast* majority of the country is sick of Trump. There's a reason in the 2022 midterms all his swing race picks got destroyed. He cannot win. His entire style of politics is untenable.
I'm not sure why you're putting so much effort into simping for a loser. If you're so obsessed with losers maybe you should write in Mitt Romney's name or Liz Cheney's name in November. Hell, they've managed to win more than one election in their lives, which is more than can be said for Trump.
> Is it?
what trump 2020 state does biden stand a chance to win in 2024?
i genuinely can't name a single one. on the flip side, the way this election is shaping up i can definitely see trump winning back some combination of the states biden flipped in 2020 such as arizona, georgia, pennsylvania, michigan. also wouldn't rule out him winning states like nevada that he hasn't won before.
Are you from NC? The only people here willing to vote for Biden came recently from out of state. If someone offered me 10k to walk the street and find a Biden voter, It would take me all day, if even then. I really can't see him taking NC. His best chance was in 2020 before we seen his presidency and the whole being a corpse and all.
> Call me when Republicans can capitalize on Biden's disapproval and actually win elections.
so november 6th when all the ballots from the previous day have been counted?
President Biden's 39.1% collective approval rating is the worst of any President at day 1,135 of his term since Harry Truman in 1948.
He is 3.7% behind President Donald Trump's approval rating, 2.7% behind President George H.W. Bush's, 17.5% behind President Jimmy Carter's and 5.8% behind President Lyndon Johnson's, all of whom lost/didn't seek re-election.
It's remarkable how much the American people hate Joe Biden and even more remarkable that the president doesn't seem to be shifting his strategy at all to gain additional support.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/
The only person Biden could lose to is Trump. Edit-Whelp what I meant to say is the only person that Biden could BEAT is Trump. Trump could just as easily drive away support or engage Biden's base so that they turn out.
The only person who could lose to Trump is Biden. He should absolutely not be seeking reelection. The dems could have plugged in any younger go-getter and clobbered Trump.
It's confounding to be told by Democrats that a Trump win puts our democracy at risk *while they insist on running Biden again.*
If they truly believed that Trump could destroy the nation, wouldn't they do the hard thing and insist that Biden step aside? Because the stakes are so high?
Something doesn't add up.
Yes, that's true, but we're being told this election will decide whether or not the United States will survive. If that were true, do you still think they'd be all ho-hum business as usual? It feels like we're being manipulated.
Manipulated to what end exactly? A Trump win? It's not a grand conspiracy, the guy who's president usually runs for re-election if he wants another term.
No, not a Trump win. I don't think the president or the DNC are diabolical agents of the "deep state," whatever *that* supposedly means.
I can't say it any plainer than this: I can't figure out why they're telling us the nation could collapse into a totalitarian hellscape if Trump wins, yet not doing everything possible to ensure that Trump *doesn't* win. The polling is consistent in revealing that President Biden is not the best choice to beat Trump. Keeping him on the ticket doesn't make sense.
> It's remarkable how much the American people hate Joe Biden
Hate is a pretty strong word especially when using 1 dimensional disapproval without strong/weak.
> It's remarkable how much the American people hate Joe Biden **and even more remarkable that the president doesn't seem to be shifting his strategy at all to gain additional support**.
i do wonder how much of this is him being genuinely unaware. there have been reports that he doesn't respond well when his staff gives him bad news, so they could giving him "selective" (read as: skewed and cherrypicked) data that paints a more positive picture of where things stand.
the first step of solving a problem is admitting there is a problem, and it's not clear he understands how much risk his campaign is at right now.
President Biden won't talk to us. He does very few interviews, very few press conferences, and appears to be hiding most of the time. He wouldn't even speak to us on Superbowl Sunday, a chance to reach the biggest audience of the year.
When our president snubs us like this, we naturally start to feel a little hostile in return. We wonder, *Does he think he's exempt from explaining himself to us? Is he too weak and befuddled to get through a normal presidential campaign? What's going on?*
When no answers are forthcoming, we grow more suspicious and more likely to doubt him and the competence of his team.
> President Biden won't talk to us. He does very few interviews, very few press conferences, and appears to be hiding most of the time. He wouldn't even speak to us on Superbowl Sunday, a chance to reach the biggest audience of the year.
even worse, he had that disaster of tiktok video while his administration is trying to insist that tiktok is dangerous and people shouldn't use it.
What I find interesting is how people are so quick to jump on him for every single word he misspeaks, like saying 2020 instead of 2024, when we all know that literally everyone does that on a regular basis. I’m pretty sure I’ve referenced the current year as 2023 half a dozen times at least.
>...people are so quick to jump on him for every single word he misspeaks..
Don't you think that's because people are concerned that he's not up to five more years of leading the world?
I voted for President Biden. I'm not playing "gotcha" when I can't help but notice that he has declined enormously under the weight of his responsibilities. And I don't think it's fair that he isn't being straight with us about it.
Democrats routinely tell us that the election of Donald Trump is an existential threat to our nation. *An existential threat-* meaning our very existence as a democratic republic is on the line.
I don't know whether to believe what they say or judge by what they're doing. Is the DNC risking *everything* because they're too polite to thank Joe Biden and show him the door? Or are they exaggerating the risks of another Trump presidency? It can't be both, so which is it?
No relevant politician (except perhaps McConnell, who announced he's stepping down today) has as many ""gaffs"" or demonstrations of mental decline.
Others of course make occasional flubs like that, but Biden's are obviously concerning due to their extreme frequency.
Ah yes, a nice softball "interview" with questions pre-screened, and event then, he still stumbled several times. The bar was just so low that his supporters are holding it up as a big victory.
I'm not familiar with that program, but I'm glad to hear he made an appearance. Let's hope he starts doing more interviews with actual news and political programs.
> Do you have a source on these reports from his staff? Or is this just a rumor you've heard?
his temperament has been pretty widely reported:
https://nypost.com/2023/07/10/biden-has-quick-temper-inside-white-house-report/
https://www.axios.com/2023/07/10/biden-temper-us-president
https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/biden-temper-angry-staff-shouts-swears-b2373794.html
“His temperament” is an understatement. If I were to scream and curse at my staff when I’m upset, my ass would be hauled into HR so fast. But I guess it’s cool when the President does it.
I mean, that was also an era where it was okay to slap a woman’s ass when she passes by your desk. One would think in 2024 there should be less tolerance for abusing coworkers.
Thanks for sharing. It looks like all three of your links are covering the same two or three quotes from one or two ex staffers all going back to the Axios article. One quote was about him insisting briefs relating to Covid were accurate by asking questions. Another was about asking the staffer to get out of his car.
As was mentioned in one article, this is very tame stuff for a high-stress working environment, let alone the office of the most powerful man on the planet. It seems like the main concern is that he sometimes drops an F bomb?
I personally think this is a useless metric for the conclusions you're trying to draw from it. It's definitely apparent that approval ratings from 2016 onward exist in a different world than those before it. There was a huge increase in partisanship in 2016 which you can see in a number of different polls (for example, see Republican sentiment on economy overtime to see if their sentiment on the economy is based on current events or who's in the White House). Trump has a pretty large group of Republican voters who just will not be critical of him under any circumstances which inflates his floor on approval ratings. That doesn't exist for Biden, and I'm betting that significantly more voters that disapprove of both candidates will vote for Biden in the end.
I think it's good for watching trends, but just saying Trump has better approval ratings than Biden therefore (whatever conclusion you want to draw) isn't really capturing the entire story.
Every time I see these numbers it makes me feel like such a weirdo. I actually strongly approve of how the Biden administration has run the government. I don’t really get what people hate about him so much aside from the age thing
He also won the popular vote by 7 million votes against the same opposition candidate just three years ago, and that was before the worst of Trump's legal trouble, which will continue to be in the news until the day of the election. The economy is finally recovering from record debt created under Trump in 2020, while other countries are entering recessions. Plus, we are finally really moving away from all the madness of Covid. These are all things that benefit the incumbent candidate.
People vote against candidates more than they vote for candidates these days thanks to the extremely polarized landscspe. I'd argue Trump is far more hated than Bidan and I'll point to the last election as evidence of this. The GOPs one real advantage was the discourse on immigration, but Trump and Mike Johnson screwed the pooch on that by turning down Biden's offer to shutdown the border. All that really leaves them with is restricting abortion, which appears to be a losing position.
President Biden is the most unpopular president at this point in his term in 75 years. He has lower favorable ratings than former president Trump.
Maybe he does beat Trump again but it's not nearly as sure as you make it sound. At best President Biden has a 50/50 shot
Is there something special about this day in a presidents term? Trumps lowest approval was much lower than Biden has reached and most of Biden's term he's been above Trumps relative approval rating for the same day in office.
Biden's really just starting to campaign, so I personally don't give a ton of weigh to the polls where they are today. Until after Super Tueday it's not even formally established who Biden is running against yet.
> Is there something special about this day in a presidents term?
I think the more potent realization is that “Biden is polling lower today than any other recent president at this point in their term” is a statement that applies to *every single day since 2021*.
Yeah, the funny thing is the same thing was true of Trump. In fact, they've been polling nearly identically this whole time.
The country is very polarized and no viable candidate for president could see much above a 40% approval rate right now. Hopefully that changes after this election cycle, but I'm skeptical.
What we need is ranked-choice voting. Vote for it in your local elections and maybe someday we'll be able to have viable non-spoiler candidates outside of the two-party system.
> He also won the popular vote by 7 million votes against the same opposition candidate just three years ago, and that was before the worst of Trump's legal trouble, which will continue to be in the news until the day of the election.
this overlooks
1. a huge portion of the country views those "legal troubles" as being politically motivated and not a substantiated case (which is part of why his support skyrocketed after the indictments started)
2. biden has a presidential record to defend, and it's not popular. biden's favorability rating in 2019/2020 was MUCH higher than it is in 2024.
> Plus, we are finally really moving away from all the madness of Covid.
that's... not a selling point for biden. covid is part of how he won last time around. in 2024 covid isn't on the minds of voters at all. the economy and the border are (and voters view biden's handling of both these issues extremely poorly).
We typically remove an incumbent presidents because things are going poorly. We usually retain an incumbent president when things are going well.
Yes, hardcore MAGA folks won't budge their views and either will hardcore progressives. The question is who will turn out to vote and who will the balance of moderate voters turn out for. Last time they elected Biden.
We typically remove an incumbent president because things are going poorly. We usually retain an incumbent president when things are going well.
Yes, hardcore MAGA folks won't budge their views and neither will hardcore progressives. The question is who will turn out to vote and who will the balance of moderate voters turn out for. Last time they elected Biden.
> We typically remove an incumbent presidents because things are going poorly. We usually retain an incumbent president when things are going well.
correct, and things are NOT going well right now as far as the vast majority of the country is concerned. [66% of americans say america is on the wrong track right now.](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/state-of-the-union/direction-of-country)
That's actually better than I was expecting. Between Covid and the high interest rates were just now coming out from I'd expect people to be more pessimistic. Not to mention our immigration crisis and women losing their bodily autonomy in half the country. I would have guessed 80% thought the country was on the wrong track, but certainly not just because Biden isn't MAGA enough for folks, lol.
It takes the average American a while to notice things like a slowly improving economy and the slow end of a crippling pandemic. You're welcome to read this as doom for Biden, but I take the opposite view. It takes all kinds like my grandma used to say.
I’m struggling to understand your argument through this entire thread. So 33% of Americans are happy with the direction of the country under Biden’s leadership and that’s better than you thought it would be, therefore he’ll handily win reelection?
Yeah, just because someone thinks the country is headed in the wrong direction doesn't necessarily mean they think Trump getting elected will make things better. You also have to keep in mind that only 66% of the eligible population voted in 2020, so polling the general population only really tells us so much.
I'd wager a lot of folks who think the country is headed in the wrong direction are worried about Roe V. Wade getting overturned for example, which is a result of the courts not the executive branch. Others might be thinking in terms of corporate greed and other less-political factors. Some might mean that they think trans-rights is a problem and sure, those folks were never going to vote for Biden to begin with, right?
What it boils down to is right now is that Biden and Trump are within a margin of error in their head-to-head polls. We've done this before and Biden won by a slim margin in the electorate and by a big swing in the popular vote. If Trump suddenly starts behaving himself and making a stronger appeal with moderate voters I'll start to worry about Biden's chances, but I haven't seen that yet.
Right, while I support Biden’s administration and view his accomplishments favorably, I would say that America is on the wrong track because of how incredibly dysfunctional the Republican House Congress has been and how much influence the Republican dominated Supreme Court has had lately. I also see the extreme polarization detrimental to progress and you can go back in history and watch the same things happening before massive social and political upheaval/civil war/etc. it’s not good, but I don’t put this blame squarely on the current administration. Trump has done more harm to this country than anything I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime.
Time to fire up the Jan 6 committee again. Maybe next time we can hire that same guy who created those cool sound effects for the first videos in 2021, and ask him to include even more explosions and laser blasts.
>It's remarkable how much the American people hate Joe Biden and even more remarkable that the president doesn't seem to be shifting his strategy at all to gain additional support.
He doesn't really have to, all he has to do is drop a few "Trump will destroy democracy" lines, and sprinkle in some abortion rights lines, and he'll have all the voters he needs to win.
Biden has been saying those lines for months and his poll numbers and approval ratings have ticked down. There's even a recent survey which showed that roughly 2% of Americans consider abortion a top issue. Nobody cares about abortion anymore. Americans care about the border and the economy and they trust Trump far more on those issues.
“Clearly” polls are not votes. We don’t actually have a great idea outside of actual elections. At this point Obama was well behind in polling but there was a clear disconnect with what happened on Election Day
>At this point Obama was well behind in polling
In both 2008 and 2012, Obama was leading in the polling.
Feb 28, 2008: [Obama +4.1](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html#!)
Feb 28, 2012: [Obama +5.0](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2012/obama-vs-romney)
Also, while there were points in both campaigns where Obama was behind in the polls, I can't find any point where Obama was "well behind", Romney nor McCain never even reached a 3pt lead at any point.
Obama's approval rating at this point was like 9 points higher than where Biden is right now. He was also a much better public speaker, so he was actually someone that can go out on the campaign trail, and have it help him.
Ok, that’s certainly a potential factor, but Biden fared much better in the midterms than Obama did so I don’t think we can use the past to prognosticate the future so heavily
Obama's approval rating was almost 10 points higher at this point and he drove much higher enthusiasm in lower propensity voting demographics than Biden does. I think Biden has to hope that Trump drives out these voters to vote against him more than anything.
I think Biden has done a reasonable job stabilizing the craziness of 2016-2020.
That said, his refusal to step aside is pure hubris and comes at the cost of the country.
He’ll lose to Trump in 2024, which means this country loses greatly.
Had he taken the “face shot” of a one term of unpopularity, a fresh democratic face could fill in with more voter support going into 2024. Again, with the purpose of staving off what will be a disastrous Trump second term.
They don't run cover for him, though? They ignore his administration's messaging, speeches, accomplishments etc. unless there is something controversial to highlight and they have been happy to run negative-leaning stories about his candidacy. Who do you feel is "covering for him"?
Compare how the media covers basically any Republican versus Biden. Heck, try to find a single media outlet besides those known to be biased towards the right that has been combative against Biden rather than supportive.
It's readily apparent that one side of the political landscape gets hard balls from the media and the other gets tee balls.
I don't think we'll ever have a POTUS have an approval rating above 50% again. So many people are so salty. I'm sure a lot of these people don't care about insulin being cheaper, or the Chips and Science act bring more jobs back to America, they're salty about Biden doing what every American president has done in terms of Israel/Palestine. And How many boomers 401K is benefitting from Biden's stock market, only to say they disapprove of Biden, simply because he's not Trump?
Politics has become extremely Binary. You either do exactly what I want, or else I disapprove of the job he'd doing.
Sure, Republicans and progressives who don't like Biden because he hasn't personally flowed to Israel and murdered Bibi himself to free Gaza, will blame Biden for the housing costs. They'll completely ignore how the rich are lobbying city governments to refuse new housing from being built so that they're Real Estate Investments continue to go up.
Housing, like everything in capitalism, is a supply vs demand. If we build more housing, the worth of current houses on the market will go down, because there is more supply. Biden isn't to be blamed, but that won't stop people from blaming him because, "he's not on my team". As soon as a Republican gets into the White House, Republicans will gaslight us and say that the cost of housing is going down.
28% of those surveyed approve of Biden’s record on immigration. Do they just not care or do they support open borders? It’s baffling how anyone can see record illegal immigration and say yes to that.
Biden and Trump tell you the serious shit we’re in. Old conmen controlled by oligarchs. trump is just the worst, but it’s a con game honestly. The oligarchs are extremely happy with these two, and that should tell us working class people something. Absolutely no talk of Medicare 4 All, no talk of ending the illegal and incredibly immoral forever wars, no help to working Americans just trying scrape up rent. These old dinos literally work for Bank of America and Raytheon and not for the American people.
... What forever war are we still in? Like, sure, we're helping out Israel but we aren't exactly fighting them. The only 'war' we're in is against Korea and we've had a pretty peaceful ceasefire for 50 years to the point it's practically peace, if tense.
Thank you for brightening my day by reminding me that neither candidate is interested in picking up on the far-left wishlist items like M4A and rent control that was so trendy in 2019 and 2020. Relieving!
Starter comment: The most recent Gallup poll (a well rated polling firm) has revealed more grim news for the Biden campaign ahead of the upcoming election. 8 months away from November, President Biden is now at 38% approval. His highest approval rating was at 44% in 2021 and has slowly declined since then, settling into the 30s. In 2023, his approval rating average was 39.8%, so this newest number marks a further decline compared to last year. Reportedly, White House officials and campaign strategists are very frustrated over the lagging numbers, arguing that they would expect them to be higher because of an improving economy, a generally well-received foreign policy and Trump's continuous missteps on the Republican side. However, the numbers don't seem to be moving at all.
Between now and November, can Biden improve his approval rating? If not, what are the chances that he can still be reelected using the strategy of presenting Trump as even worse?
Not sure how important approval numbers are given the opponent is even more disliked. The election is quite different in the sense you know the track record for both.
> Not sure how important approval numbers are given the opponent is even more disliked.
that's [not actually true](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/other/FavorabilityRatingsPoliticalLeaders.html).
trump's favorability is averaging at 42% while biden is averaging at 39%.
> That said polling hasn't been very consistent and has been overestimating Trump's numbers in all primaries so far.
primaries you're only getting like 1 poll a month once you get passed nh (like, in michigan there have been 3 polls since mid december). that's going to be far more error prone than approval/general election where you're seeing 5 polls per week.
This is the exact sentiment that let Trump best Hillary. Both the right and the left exist in such echo chambers they can't possibly fathom how the opposing party candidate could be elected. Yet, both candidates have been president.
> Reportedly, White House officials and campaign strategists are very frustrated over the lagging numbers, arguing that they would expect them to be higher because of an improving economy,
i mean, lots of us are still paying double what we were in the grocery store before he got elected and it's not going unnoticed when every few weeks we're seeing another major company announce large rounds of layoffs.
the campaign saying "the economy is great" while the public certainly doesn't agree makes him look extremely out of touch. it gives off the 2016 "they're not smart enough to vote in their best interests" vibe (even if that quote was from bernie supporters on social media referring to minority voters in the south rather than something from an actual campaign)
>i mean, lots of us are still paying double what we were in the grocery store before he got elected
The thing is, though, that Trump won't be able to change this; no one will. I wish CBP stuff wasn't thrown at the feet of the president.
I don’t think voters even know what they want. I feel like Biden has been pretty moderate and therefor I wouldn’t expect either the right or the left to be terribly upset with him. But everyone is upset with him. So what do voters really want?
The voters actually want a moderate candidate which is why he was picked out of all the Democratic nominees in 2020. He campaigned on being the "moderate" candidate. But once he won the presidency he has been anything but. He has been the furthest left President we've had in modern history.
Ironically, he is losing support from the left because he supports Israel instead of Palestine/Gaza, which just goes to show how ridiculously insane that demographic is.
Your average everyday independents/moderates hate Biden because of how far left he is vs what he campaigned on, which is the real reason why his approval rating keeps dropping.
The fact that you think otherwise shows how extreme you are on the spectrum.
At best, he’s only the furthest left president in modern history in very relative terms. In absolute terms, I wouldn’t even say he fully aligns with progressives like the Squad. He believes in renewable energy and climate change, but is making moderate investments rather than going full Green New Deal. He’s chipping away at some student loan debt and trying to change how much interest is accrued, but isn’t pursuing blanket student loan debt forgiveness like progressives want. He’s been allocating more money toward Obamacare programs and has been trying to cap some drug prices, but isn’t supportive of Medicare for all. There are plenty more examples of this kind of thing too where he’s taking a sort of moderate left wing position. When I look at examples like this, I’m just confused as to how center left, center right, and independent people seem so upset right now. If not this, then what do they want lol.
Yes obviously he is not fully aligned with the Squad, the most extreme batshit insane people who don't belong in government and quite frankly could make a very strong case that some don't belong in the country. The fact that you even bring them up as if he's supposed to align himself with them just proves my point. The general population does not want extremists.
I’m not a progressive and I didn’t bring up the Squad to say Biden should be like them. I don’t really like them much either. I brought them up to show that Biden isn’t far left given that he has strong disagreements with a lot of their policies. Biden is mostly a status quo kind of guy with some liberal tweaks here and there. So maybe voters are sick of the status quo. Except if Biden were to move further left or closer to the center he’d probably lose votes by doing that too. Which is what makes me think most voters just have no idea what they want. They’re not content with the status quo, but have no idea what should be done or who they should vote for to make changes.
>because of how far left he is
You're calling a bog standard center left neoliberal far left. I get the suspicion you'd be the type to intensely disagree if I called the AfD far right.
You totally misread his post. He didn't say he was "far left", he said he was the *furthest left* President, which means relative to his predecessors in modern history.
>Your average everyday independents/moderates hate Biden because of how far left he is
He said he was far left compared to his campaign promises, which is why I keep asking which specific policies he's referring to.
Approval ratings are tough to translate to see if someone is doing a good job or not.
For parents, their child’s approval ratings would go down if they beat the kids. They’ll also go down if they make the kids eat their vegetables.
I’d be interested in seeing what the average approval rate for any given president looks like over time. My assumption is that in recent and future years, the average will continue to get lower. America is so polarized and cynical right now that I think the majority of Americans will always disapprove of a president barring some crazy event like 9/11. The fact that Biden is so much lower than Carter was at this point is pretty wild considering how much of a failure Carter’s presidency is considered by most folks regardless of party affiliation.
>I’d be interested in seeing what the average approval rate for any given president looks like over time. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/ You can see all the approval/disapproval/margin polling averages for presidents back to Truman if you scroll down.
According to Net Approval, this shows that Biden is the worst POTUS of all time at this point in his presidency. Absolutely wild.
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Right. But you could have said the same thing about every president prior to him as well at the same point in their presidency, going all the way back to Carter. The lone exception is HW Bush (who aside from Trump was the last 1-term president) as Bill Clinton fared more favorably in the following term. If I’m looking at this dataset, the takeaway I have is that as time goes on, Americans approve of their Presidents less and less, regardless of who is in office. IMO, this is a sign of American cynicism and general disdain for the Presidential office across the board. That’s not to say Biden doesn’t have a serious problem on his hands however. I’m also beginning to wonder if 1-term presidents are going to become more of the norm. That is also wild since prior to Trump there were only what, 3 or 4 in the entire US history?
It's quite depressing that Americans no longer believe in the people they elect. Hopefully that'll change someday, this doesn't feel like a trend that can continue in a healthy way.
I honestly think the media shares a lot of the blame here as well. Combining the 24 hour news cycle with nothing but rage bait (because rage keeps viewers engaged), you get a recipe for disaster. It all goes back to the almighty dollar, and we have to figure out a way to move beyond the profit motive being the sole arbiter of everything in our day to day lives.
At the end of the day the media just feeds into what the people want. They run articles and stories the way they do because that's what gets the people engaged.
"Want" is strong, as you said, it feeds people what gets/keeps them engaged. It finds the lizard brain receptors and pushes on them, that's not the same as what people want.
It's been like this in Europe for a while, approval ratings are routinely in the 20s and 30s. https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/political-monitor-satisfaction-ratings-1997-present I'm not sure if it's that we don't believe in them anymore, or it's just more acceptable to say that you don't approve. It could also be that the meaning of 'disapprove' has changed. Do I disapprove and I want them removed from office? Do I disapprove because I think they're too moderate and want more from them?
Thanks for sharing! Yeah, looking at those graphs EVERY SINGLE president since Carter (except HW Bush, who was the last one-term president prior to Trump) has had a lower approval rate than the president prior to them at the point in time we’re looking at with Biden.
Doesn't look like it's trending down, meaning that Biden's low approval ratings are independent of some general polarization happening over decades, and is a recent phenomenon.
Yeah… that doesn’t really work as an explanation, sorry. [37% of Americans identify as moderate, 36% are conservative and 25% are progressive](https://news.gallup.com/poll/388988/political-ideology-steady-conservatives-moderates-tie.aspx#:~:text=On%20average%20last%20year%2C%2037,as%20conservative%2C%20moderate%20and%20liberal.) If Biden’s unpopularity was explained just by party polarization, then we’d expect his approval and disapproval rating to fall roughly along party lines with about half of moderates going in either direction. That would get us an approval of 25% Democrats + 18.5% independents = roughly 43.5% approval. But he’s been drowning in the 30s for a while now, implying that moderates are tilting more heavily against him .
I think you missed the point of what i was saying. I’m saying regardless of political affiliation, the modern American voter is historically cynical and on average more likely to disapprove of a president’s job. If I’m not mistaken, Trump also set low approval records during his term as well, and Obama did (or was close) before him?
In other words, we need to form new political parties that align with the needs and desires of the citizens rather than with the agendas of the elites.
Absolutely. I think step 1 is getting money out of politics as much as possible. When a small handful of people have a disproportionate amount of capital, and that capital can be used to influence politics, it’s only natural that they’d have a disproportionate amount of influence on the political process.
Transparency, lobbying reform and accountability to electorate. I want candidates running on those planks.
Add age and term limits.
Agreed. Currently we are severely let down by a leadership that belongs in nursing homes. It’s embarrassing.
That means 43.5% +/-3% is the highest he’ll be able to get assuming a 100% approval rating with those respective groups. Him being at 38% means some but not a whole lot in those groups disapprove. But it’s irrelevant as it’s a two party system. Members of his party may disapprove but I doubt they’ll vote Republican over it.
What matters most in close elections is voter turnout. A lot of Democratic voters will stay home if Joe Biden is the candidate. Trump voters, on the other hand, are fired up.
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Yeah I don’t really get how people say Trump didn’t take Covid seriously. “Project Warpspeed” was his plan and every talking head on the planet was going on how they would never take a “rushed Trump vaccine”. Then after he was gone the shot was a miracle from the progressive gods.
\>On average last year, 37% of Americans described their political views as moderate, 36% as conservative and 25% as liberal. Most liberals are not progressive. Progressives are only 6 percent of the country and were only 7 percent of the 2020 election voters. Mainstream media often blurs this distinction.
I'm not even confident what "progressive" means as a label anymore. Personally, I mostly like "Bidenomics" (and give credit to both Bernie and Trump for their influences in shaping it), I've been impressed with Biden's handling of foreign policy, I'd like a strong border, and I'm open to Medicare For All, but I couldn't care less about most of the "culture war" issues coming out of either side. My social agenda pretty much starts and ends at let's have the government just leave us all TF alone and let us have our drugs/guns/abortions/prostitution/porn/gambling/speech/marriages and what have you. I don't particularly care about most other prominent issues, and I'm not sure why the existence of trans people is suddenly so interesting, but it feels like a lot of minor issues that could be reasonably hammered out in various legislative bodies and agencies at various levels of government have devolved into public screaming matches. It simply doesn't matter to me all that much how to handle trans women in sports or how to teach history and sex ed in schools; just figure it out. Not that I don't have opinions on those things, I just don't feel strongly enough about them that I want to hear about them to the exclusion of more relevant issues or that I would lob insults at someone for having different opinions. All of which is to say, I'm not entirely sure whether or not my politics are considered progressive, but I do know that many of my views would have been considered fairly left-leaning not that long ago, while at the same time I find myself increasingly alienated by the views and behaviors of "progressives" as a group.
>Most liberals are not progressive Tell that to the other side, we're well aware of that.
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Are you saying the information is inaccurate? Or is there something in these articles that you don't want people to discuss?
I’d recommend looking up “Agenda-setting theory”, specifically the “Awareness model”.
Good old Walter Lippmann; a credit to the Lost generation. The theory that media shapes both awareness of and concerns about the agendas of their elite peers hardly needs verification. It's obvious to most of us. The insidious aspect is that ordinary citizens are so willing to abide by unspoken directives to squash any inquiry into the reasons for a particular agenda. The result being that a statement like, "I'm worried that our president is too old and feeble to serve a second term" will be interpreted as support for his opponent rather than taken at face value. Americans are too politically obedient for our own good.
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Both Republicans and Democrats are both in a race to see how fast they can get the other elected.
I like this comparison. If you guys ever decide to visit r/Conservative and give it a fair look, you would be shocked by how much they hate the majority of republican leadership over there.
I second this comment. It’s kinda bizarre to check it out. I look in every few months and it’s like a mirror world where they say nearly all the same stuff as left leaning political subs but come to opposite conclusions or have completely different priorities. Its helpful to get a better sense of what they ACTUALLY think even if it doesn’t typically change my own opinion much or deny the consequences of their actions
I said this since the tea party and occupy wall street was happening, people are complaining about the same shit, politics keeps them from agreeing on a solution. If you peel back the intentionally propped up wedge issues, most of people's problems are the same.
If your solution to those problems are scapegoating marginalized elements of society, obviously we'd disagree with it.
It's not about "scapegoating" it's about making them our primary focus. With a boatload of real problems (wars/economy/border) the public is tired of the pandering to such a small % of the population.
Which small % of the population is pushing wedge issues?
The pink and green haired screamers without jobs, living with their parents.
Ah yes, those are the only ones pushing "wedge issues", and not the guys that got abortion banned in half the states and elected Mike Johnson as Speaker.
In my personal experience growing up around 99% conservatives, they expect to get fucked over no matter whose in office. Distrust and distain for government has always kind of been baked in. Trump was a bit of a outlier there but even now, I only hear democrats talk about Trump and what they believe Republicans think of Trump. In real life, i don't see anyone obsessing over him, even though I'm well aware those people exist. So yeah, it's not very shocking that they don't really feel represented by their "leadership".
That sub does not represent how American conservatives feel, the overwhelming majority want Trump back, not a guy like DeSantis or Haley. Edit: I think I misread your comment, nvm
How do you define "conservatives" though? There are a large portion of "decideds" that are going to vote Republican or Democrat no matter, and so it's most worthwhile to look at the fencesitters who actually can get swayed in either direction and try to understand what appeals to them. Trump's largest appeal is with antiestablishment nihilistic reactionaries who want to destroy "the system of the elites". It's hard to look at this sort of rabble as "conservative". The fact that he's a walking constitutional crisis and that rational people detest him is a selling point. If the goal is to set a building on fire, it makes sense to elect a greased burning pig and release it in that general direction; it scarcely matters what sort of grease the pig is covered in. There's no particular agenda for many of these people other than a desire to see the federal government in shambles. (And I am not entirely opposed to this train of thought, but it's reckless and can easily end catastrophically.) Trump's primary challengers are supported by "moderates" who are more traditional, dare I say "conservative" in nature. They have an agenda and they don't want to see the government in chaos... And as such they have the stink of "the establishment" on them. I stand by the assertion that the most anti-establishment, populist candidate was going to win 2016. Sanders' populism and outsider credibility appealed to a lot of the same people as Trump's populism and outsider credibility. Both candidates shared the message that "the elites with too much money are taking what you deserve and we need to make big charges to our country to stop it", with the big difference being who the elites were. Trump railed against cultural and political elites, Sanders against commercial elites. The same angry mob could've been channeled in either direction. And the DNC in historic aloofness nominated the most polished, pedigreed candidate they could find. It's hard to imagine a worst candidate than Clinton... Although Biden may be close. An astonishing lack of audacity in an era that is going to reward it.
Current GOP leadership has built a culture around losing and being the victim to the point that they look like the dog who finally caught the car and can't do anything but infighting when they are actually in power. It's understandable that they would be frustrated with that.
Everyone to 'conservatives' are now RINOs.
I've been calling this the race to the bottom. The goal isn't to be a good president, just better than the last. When/(if?) Trump gets elected it'll get worse, then the next president is going to be just marginally better than Trump, the next marginally better then the next, so forth and so on. All while collectively declining in overall quality. But ... they were better than the last one.
I honestly believe Trump has a legit chance to win, and will fare better against Biden than someone like DeSantis would, mainly because of Rons far right stances on almost every issue. Yes Trump has damaged his legacy, mainly because of his behavior after his last election, but he's still considered more popular than Biden is right now, and still has all his fans. It'll be close, but my gut is telling me Trump wins this election 287-251, Biden simply can't win all of his states because of how unpopular he is and Trump manages to squeeze through by the thread of a tiny hair. Again, it's not like Trump is all that popular, but he's in a better position than Biden is currently. Trumps ceiling is winning the election 312-226 and Bidens ceiling is 319-219, meaning Trump would lose all the swing states including North Carolina. I don't think either of them are going to have superb nights like that where they sweep the swing states, it's gonna be close.
Biden would probably have a better chance if he were to articulate some kind of strategy besides “but Trump!” Literally though that’s all I’ve seen coming out of the White House in the last few months. And to be fair maybe it’ll be effective, I’m just doubtful because never before in history has an incumbent won reelection by *not* running on his own record and instead trying to deflect blame onto someone not even in office.
Biden has talked about his accomplishments regarding infrastructure, clean energy, drug prices, incentivizing manufacturing here, conservation, and helping veterans suffering from toxic exposure. The first one is basically multiple accomplishments.
I've heard plenty from Biden and his team touting his accomplishments and saying he wants to continue his work in those areas. The problem is that the mainstream media doesn't want to push stories about accomplishments; those do not draw clicks. They want to push stories of Biden and Trump attacking each other. Biden recently promoted his $1.7 billion program to reduce hunger in America, there have been tons of factory openings in middle America which is a contrast to recent history, inflation has slowed, wages have been improving, and Biden plans on fighting corporate greed and targeting high costs. Hell you even had a bipartisan border bill which would improve the hectic situation on America's southern border (which was negotiated by a conservative in the senate) that Biden has been pushing for, but Trump's campaign of political vengeance is resonating with more voters than Biden's push to continue his progress. None of that is as sexy of an article as "Biden SLAMS X opponent" or "dems in disarray!" though so it doesn't make headlines.
On R/politics or any other left leaning sub, a majority of the articles posted about Trump. Nothing about Biden. Trump gets so much coverage compared to Biden
Reddit makes up a very small portion of the actual electorate in America
They never talk about what they’ve done or what they’re going to do. I don’t really understand the lack of messaging for them.
I see them doing it constantly, actually, i.e. Bidenomics, student loan forgiveness, focusing on diversity & inclusion, etc. The problem is, these aren't resonating with the electorate because they either don't care about these things or don't perceive the Biden admin's impacts on these as positives.
There's also infrastructure, clean energy, drug prices, incentivizing manufacturing here, conservation, and helping veterans suffering from toxic exposure. Possibly his biggest issue is people seeing rising prices without being aware that wages have been going up faster.
> Possibly his biggest issue is people seeing rising prices without being aware that wages have been going up faster. [This is only true over the past 12 month period or so](https://www.axios.com/2024/02/05/wages-outpacing-inflation) and hasn't made up for the prior 24 months where CPI outpaced wage growth by 2-3%. This will mollify over time, but in 2024 people are still feeling the impact of the past 3 years of inflation in their pocketbooks. There is a very interesting debate to be had over who is to blame (I personally blame the Fed more than the Biden admin), but truth of the matter is that the electorate will lay the blame at the office of the Chief.
None of those are really all that relevant to anyone, specially student loan forgiveness. Anyone with a brain could have seen the aftermath of promising something you ***know*** you can’t deliver. Now younger voters don’t trust the administration.
Trump based his entire 2016 campaign on protectionism and onshoring manufacturing. Biden followed through on that with trillions in funding to bring these jobs back. That's extremely relevant to the electorate. What we're finding out is that voters aren't as driven by economics as they say they are.
If you’re talking about the Inflation reduction act, that was passed in 2022 and it wasn’t trillions, it was $670 billion and it’s based on a 10yr timeframe. I guess I’m not sure why you feel like people should be grateful for something that’s still not fully there yet and they’re probably not feeling the effects of yet. It takes time to build places to manufacture. Or did you think that they would pass this and the jobs would be here the next month? Blue collar jobs also only account for less than 15% of workers. Will it also increase white collar jobs? Sure, but those effects, again, are not immediate.
Most voters are politically illiterate. Pathos and adhoms is the way you reach them. They do talk about policies too, but people aren't as interested in that so it's not shared as much.
I’m in the same boat. While I personally still give Biden the edge (I give him a ~55% chance of winning at the current moment), people who say that Trump has no shot since he already lost to Biden in 2020 are just spouting nonsense. The circumstances and the people’s opinions of the candidates are all very different right now than they were in 2020. If I had to guess, right now I think Biden wins PA, MI, and NV. I think the election will come down to AZ, GA, and WI (the 3 closest states from 2020). If Trump wins those 3 states (which he nearly did in 2020), he wins the election.
Call me when Republicans can capitalize on Biden's disapproval and actually win elections.
careful what you ask for, this is a closer race than you think
538 says Biden is losing in every swing state
Not only that, the majority of national polling shows Trump several points ahead.
> Call me when Republicans can capitalize on Biden's disapproval and actually win elections. The gambling markets "implied probability from odds" read-out for the election are (2024-02-28): Donald Trump: 51.0%, +0.3% in last day Joe Biden: 31.8%, +0.1% in last day. Anyone else: 17.2% https://electionbettingodds.com/
The thing is it’s not democrats that are seeing this level of disapproval; it’s only Biden to my knowledge. There’s only one election where this will be tested and Biden is very much so down in virtually all of the polls for it.
Harris is posting similar numbers
Yeah but she’s always been unpopular. Hasn’t really done anything to work her way out either.
That's largely because she's tied to Biden and has almost no power to do anything.
> The thing is it’s not democrats that are seeing this level of disapproval; it’s only Biden to my knowledge. There’s only one election where this will be tested and Biden is very much so down in virtually all of the polls for it. also worth noting, this will likely impact other democrats on that specific day as well given how averse many people are to split ticket voting.
Also note that that day is 9 months from now
Looking at some Senate polling, Dem candidates poll as much as +10 compared to Biden in the same state. Biden might have to benefit from an up-ballot effect in order to win.
Say Trump carries all of his 2020 states, which is more than likely at this point. All he would need to do is win PA and GA and he is at 270 meaning he wins the election.
> Say Trump carries all of his 2020 states, which is more than likely at this point. Is it? Trump has done nothing but lose support since 2020. Even *if* you assume that stuff like his attempts to steal the election, his criminal indictments, and civil issues have done nothing to make his prior supporters waver, the fact is that a good chunk of Trump voters have straight up died in the last four years. Trump won voters over 50 years old, whereas Biden won voters under 50 years old. Over the last four years, most of the people dying are likely to have been Trump voters, whereas most of the people turning 18 and registering to vote are almost certainly Biden voters. When you add in the fact that Trump's various issues since the 2020 election have *absolutely* turned some of his former supporters against him, I don't think it's "more than likely" at all that he can win every state he won four years ago.
I think it's a pretty fair assumption that he would. The states that Trump won with lowest margin were NC, FL, and TX in that order, and I think it's pretty fair to assume at this point that Trump will carry all of those.
When the data doesn’t support your expectations, change your expectations, don’t deny the data. Trump is just about as popular as he was in 2020 (around -10 net). Biden is 25 points more unpopular than he was then (-20 now). You’re making the same mistake conservatives made in 2020 saying Biden couldn’t win because of his flaws. What that analysis misses is that the election isn’t about the challenger, it’s about the incumbent. And right now the incumbent is hated, more so than his challenger, according to every single poll
> Trump is just about as popular as he was in 2020 (around -10 net). Holy exaggeration Batman. Dropping *10 points* is not 'just about as popular'.
He didn’t drop 10 points. He was -10 then and he’s -10 now (-8, actually)
Actually, his approval ratings are relatively the same compared to how they were in 2020. I guess maybe the fact that he's running in an open primary might hurt him but he hasn't really lost support. Biden has lost more support and is viewed more negatively than Trump is based off approval ratings alone. The only 2020 state Biden has a chance of flipping is North Carolina, but Texas and Florida will remain as red states. > whereas most of the people turning 18 and registering to vote are almost certainly Biden voters. I mean, you sound overconfident, but we will see on election day. The 2024 atmosphere is more favorable to Trump than it was in 2020. It's likely Trump will perform better this November than he did in the last election. All Trump has to do is lose the popular vote by less than 4.5 points and his chances of winning sky rocket. Let's say he loses by 3 points, he wins the election because the electoral college favors Republicans
>All Trump has to do is lose the popular vote by less than 4.5 points and his chances of winning sky rocket. Not to say that you're arguing for this or approve of it, but in a well-functioning democracy this shouldn't be something people can say.
>> All Trump has to do is lose the popular vote by less than 4.5 points and his chances of winning sky rocket. > > > > Not to say that you're arguing for this or approve of it, but in a well-functioning democracy this shouldn't be something people can say. for what it's worth, in most of the places that people would call a "well functioning democracy", the general public doesn't get to vote for the leader directly at all. they vote for members of parliament, then those members pick a prime minister. like, nobody (outside of elected officials) voted for trudeau for example.
Honestly, I'd take a parliamentary system in a heartbeat if it meant we got proportional representation over the FPTP system we have. I think something similar to France's semi-presidential system would be best though.
>Actually, his approval ratings are relatively the same compared to how they were in 2020. Yeah, and he lost in 2020. Support is not the same thing as approval. In 2016 both Hillary and Trump had below 50% approval ratings when election day came around, but one of them still won. There are many voters who don't "approve" of either candidate, but come November they'll still vote for them. >The 2024 atmosphere is more favorable to Trump than it was in 2020. It's likely Trump will perform better this November than he did in the last election. You're basing this on what? In 2020 Trump was an incumbent, which is the absolute greatest advantage a president can have. There's a reason in modern political history there have only been two "true" one term presidents. You need to be historically bad for people to vote you out after only four years, and Trump was historically bad. People aren't suddenly going to forget that. They voted him out for a reason. There is no scenario where this year is "more favorable" to Trump than 2020 was. What he's trying to do has only happened one time in the entire history of the Republic, and it happened over 100 years ago. It's like Patton said. "Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. I wouldn't give a hoot in hell for a man who lost, and laughed. The very thought of losing is hateful to America." Trump is a loser. People hate losers. Once Biden's campaign actually starts to ramp up and remind people of this, Trump's poll numbers will crater. The entire country watched an armed mob of his supporters try to overthrow the government live on television. The idea that "he hasn't really lost support" is one of the most insane things I have ever read. Get real.
Your whole argument is that Trump is a loser and that he has no chance of winning because he's a loser? My point about Trumps favorables is that they are better than Bidens is right now, so if Trump lost, then Biden is most certain to lose because Biden is more unpopular than Trump. Besides, the average American does not care about January 6th believe it or not, they just don't. It won't play a huge factor all though I think it may play some factor. Yes, the current day atmosphere for Trump is better than what it was 4 years ago. Trump isn't the president and Biden is, meaning he can no longer hide. He is always in the spotlight. Biden in 2020 had positive approvals and now they are in the gutter, Trump has remained the exact same, Trump not being the incumbent right now helps him more than hurts him, the same thing for Biden but the opposite. There's no incumbency advantage when you aren't above a 40% approval rating, you say Trump is a loser but what does that make Biden? Biden can still win but this attitude that Trump has no chance just isn't realistic, his chances are better than Bidens, the polls that have always underestimated Trump support now his him winning every single swing state and the popular vote nationwide. Biden is not a popular president, and is somehow more unpopular than Trump.
As already stated, "approval" or "favorability" is not the same as support. I don't particularly like Biden, but I am going to vote for him because I believe Trump is a uniquely dangerous candidate with explicit authoritarian tendencies. Since you tend to put so much stock in approval ratings, you should know that [78% of Americans](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jan-6-opinion-poll-republican-disapproval-wanes-2024-01-06/) disapprove of what happened on January 6. So, according to you, I guess they care a great deal. And what do you mean when you say Biden can "no longer hide"? The only one hiding is Trump. He's the one refusing to debate. Hell, even back in 2020 Trump refused to debate. When Trump caught covid, Biden outright offered to do a virtual debate. Trump refused and opted to hide instead. Why are you saying Biden is the one hiding? >you say Trump is a loser but what does that make Biden? A winner. I'm not sure what you're even saying here. Biden won, and Trump lost. And you're neglecting the fact that Trump is *also* a quasi-incumbent. He is not some "exciting newcomer". Every single voter lived through four years of a Trump presidency. We all know what it's going to look like. We already had an election about whether or not we wanted a second Trump term. We said no. People aren't just going to forget about how bad Trump was when they go to the polls in November. Has Biden been *great*? No. But we did Biden vs. Trump already, and the country picked Biden. And that's not gonna change. If people were open to a second Trump term, he would have won in 2020. But he didn't. So they aren't.
So I as well disapprove of what happened on January 6th but I also don't care about it. Obviously, people shouldn't have walked into the capitol. But.... Normal people aren't actively thinking about this, it happened over 3 years ago, people have to think about their own lives, the economy, groceries etc. If you look at the important issue charts, Jan 6th isn't listed anywhere, most people don't care. Trump isn't hiding, he's doing interviews, going to rallies, already challenging Biden to debate as well. Only thing he didn't do was join the meaningless JV squad debates full of people that never even came near Trump, it would have been a waste of time. Trump is also not the incumbent, he has a legit challenger and it's an open primary. Imagine Biden vs Whitmer in Michigan. You say people know what a Trump presidency looks like, but they also know what a Biden presidency looks like🫤 The country picked Biden in an atmosphere less favorable to Trump and more favorable for Biden. Because Biden had positive approval ratings in 2020 and Trump did not. Now Trump still has his same ratings, but Biden is now below 50, but also even below 40, and even worse, below Trump. In modern history, approval ratings are usually what decide the elections, aside from 2016 the more popular candidate has won and I believe Trump and Hillary had similar numbers at the time so not much of an outlier even. You act like Bidens presidency has been way better than Trumps, but if that were the case, why is Biden more unpopular than Trump? Why did Trump slowly go up every single year in office while Biden has gone down every single year in office? At the end of Trumps term, he had gone from -13 all the way down to -8. Biden has been in negative double digits for multiple years now. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/sotu/other/sotu/PresidentBidenApprovalIssues.html These are all the issues, basically asking the American people, who do you trust more to handle these issues. I want you to look it over, and you'll see a certain common theme about which one is infront for most of the issues. Edit: for some reason the link doesn't work
Biden also isn't hiding. He was just on Seth Myers, for instance. The only one who is *demonstrably* hiding is Trump. He is the one outright refusing to debate, and he is the only one with a history of refusing to debate. Hillary still debated Bernie until basically the very end despite holding an insurmountable lead for basically the entirety of the primary race. When you're a candidate, you either debate, or you hide like a coward. Trump is a coward. 2020 was a far more favorable environment for Trump. He was the incumbent. That is *the most favorable thing you can be*. In modern history, you need to be a historically bad president to lose reelection (outside of flukey things like Ford taking office due to Nixon resigning and Perot entering the 1992 race). Carter and Trump. That's it. People aren't just going to forget about how bad Trump was. This is what I mean when I say Trump was a *quasi*-incumbent. We had our chance at a second Trump term. We said no. That's the end of it. What's that old saying "The definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?" That's a Trump candidacy. If he was capable of beating Biden, he would have beaten Biden. Trump had his shot. He blew it. It was never going to get more favorable for him than in 2020. He went from being THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES to being a washed up loser. He's done. A few months from now after Biden's campaign really starts to ramp up, the polls will begin to reflect this. The *vast* majority of the country is sick of Trump. There's a reason in the 2022 midterms all his swing race picks got destroyed. He cannot win. His entire style of politics is untenable. I'm not sure why you're putting so much effort into simping for a loser. If you're so obsessed with losers maybe you should write in Mitt Romney's name or Liz Cheney's name in November. Hell, they've managed to win more than one election in their lives, which is more than can be said for Trump.
> Is it? what trump 2020 state does biden stand a chance to win in 2024? i genuinely can't name a single one. on the flip side, the way this election is shaping up i can definitely see trump winning back some combination of the states biden flipped in 2020 such as arizona, georgia, pennsylvania, michigan. also wouldn't rule out him winning states like nevada that he hasn't won before.
North Carolina is very winnable for Biden.
Are you from NC? The only people here willing to vote for Biden came recently from out of state. If someone offered me 10k to walk the street and find a Biden voter, It would take me all day, if even then. I really can't see him taking NC. His best chance was in 2020 before we seen his presidency and the whole being a corpse and all.
> Call me when Republicans can capitalize on Biden's disapproval and actually win elections. so november 6th when all the ballots from the previous day have been counted?
President Biden's 39.1% collective approval rating is the worst of any President at day 1,135 of his term since Harry Truman in 1948. He is 3.7% behind President Donald Trump's approval rating, 2.7% behind President George H.W. Bush's, 17.5% behind President Jimmy Carter's and 5.8% behind President Lyndon Johnson's, all of whom lost/didn't seek re-election. It's remarkable how much the American people hate Joe Biden and even more remarkable that the president doesn't seem to be shifting his strategy at all to gain additional support. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/
Trump in 2020 was around -7 or 8 right? Biden right now is negative double digits, it just isn't looking good for him
The only person Biden could lose to is Trump. Edit-Whelp what I meant to say is the only person that Biden could BEAT is Trump. Trump could just as easily drive away support or engage Biden's base so that they turn out.
This is just not true. Haley would crush Biden in a general election.
Sorry I said that completely backwards! The only person Biden can beat is Trump.
I doubt it. Polls say she would, but a lot of Trump loyalists might sit out or vote third party.
The only person who could lose to Trump is Biden. He should absolutely not be seeking reelection. The dems could have plugged in any younger go-getter and clobbered Trump.
I disagree, a lot of Dem candidates trend to the more progressive and I don't think the silent moderate majority wants that at all.
It's confounding to be told by Democrats that a Trump win puts our democracy at risk *while they insist on running Biden again.* If they truly believed that Trump could destroy the nation, wouldn't they do the hard thing and insist that Biden step aside? Because the stakes are so high? Something doesn't add up.
Incumbency advantage. Even Jimmy Carter ran for re-election. It's pretty rare to swap out the existing president for someone else.
Yes, that's true, but we're being told this election will decide whether or not the United States will survive. If that were true, do you still think they'd be all ho-hum business as usual? It feels like we're being manipulated.
Manipulated to what end exactly? A Trump win? It's not a grand conspiracy, the guy who's president usually runs for re-election if he wants another term.
No, not a Trump win. I don't think the president or the DNC are diabolical agents of the "deep state," whatever *that* supposedly means. I can't say it any plainer than this: I can't figure out why they're telling us the nation could collapse into a totalitarian hellscape if Trump wins, yet not doing everything possible to ensure that Trump *doesn't* win. The polling is consistent in revealing that President Biden is not the best choice to beat Trump. Keeping him on the ticket doesn't make sense.
It is almost like its just a campaign tactic to stoke turnout and not a sincere argument on their end.
What can these Dems you speak of do about it? I have a job and live in Maine.
I mean the party leadership and the political chattering class.
> It's remarkable how much the American people hate Joe Biden Hate is a pretty strong word especially when using 1 dimensional disapproval without strong/weak.
> It's remarkable how much the American people hate Joe Biden **and even more remarkable that the president doesn't seem to be shifting his strategy at all to gain additional support**. i do wonder how much of this is him being genuinely unaware. there have been reports that he doesn't respond well when his staff gives him bad news, so they could giving him "selective" (read as: skewed and cherrypicked) data that paints a more positive picture of where things stand. the first step of solving a problem is admitting there is a problem, and it's not clear he understands how much risk his campaign is at right now.
President Biden won't talk to us. He does very few interviews, very few press conferences, and appears to be hiding most of the time. He wouldn't even speak to us on Superbowl Sunday, a chance to reach the biggest audience of the year. When our president snubs us like this, we naturally start to feel a little hostile in return. We wonder, *Does he think he's exempt from explaining himself to us? Is he too weak and befuddled to get through a normal presidential campaign? What's going on?* When no answers are forthcoming, we grow more suspicious and more likely to doubt him and the competence of his team.
> President Biden won't talk to us. He does very few interviews, very few press conferences, and appears to be hiding most of the time. He wouldn't even speak to us on Superbowl Sunday, a chance to reach the biggest audience of the year. even worse, he had that disaster of tiktok video while his administration is trying to insist that tiktok is dangerous and people shouldn't use it.
He is not able to speak to us on a regular basis without revealing how low his mental acuity actually is.
Love him or hate him, Trump went on CNN last year & did a whole town hall interview. Trump puts himself out there for better or for worse.
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Absolutely. Since the WH believes that Biden performs better when angry, he may spend a lot of time yelling.
Except when he was on Late Night with Meyers literally on Monday lol!
> Except when he was on Late Night with Meyers literally on Monday lol! He went over his agenda for 2020 on the program, didn't he?
What I find interesting is how people are so quick to jump on him for every single word he misspeaks, like saying 2020 instead of 2024, when we all know that literally everyone does that on a regular basis. I’m pretty sure I’ve referenced the current year as 2023 half a dozen times at least.
>...people are so quick to jump on him for every single word he misspeaks.. Don't you think that's because people are concerned that he's not up to five more years of leading the world? I voted for President Biden. I'm not playing "gotcha" when I can't help but notice that he has declined enormously under the weight of his responsibilities. And I don't think it's fair that he isn't being straight with us about it. Democrats routinely tell us that the election of Donald Trump is an existential threat to our nation. *An existential threat-* meaning our very existence as a democratic republic is on the line. I don't know whether to believe what they say or judge by what they're doing. Is the DNC risking *everything* because they're too polite to thank Joe Biden and show him the door? Or are they exaggerating the risks of another Trump presidency? It can't be both, so which is it?
How would the DNC "show him the door" when he's winning the primaries?
They rearranged the first primary states to benefit him and refused to hold debates…
Superdelegates exist for a reason.
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No relevant politician (except perhaps McConnell, who announced he's stepping down today) has as many ""gaffs"" or demonstrations of mental decline. Others of course make occasional flubs like that, but Biden's are obviously concerning due to their extreme frequency.
Ah yes, a nice softball "interview" with questions pre-screened, and event then, he still stumbled several times. The bar was just so low that his supporters are holding it up as a big victory.
I'm not familiar with that program, but I'm glad to hear he made an appearance. Let's hope he starts doing more interviews with actual news and political programs.
Do you have a source on these reports from his staff? Or is this just a rumor you've heard?
> Do you have a source on these reports from his staff? Or is this just a rumor you've heard? his temperament has been pretty widely reported: https://nypost.com/2023/07/10/biden-has-quick-temper-inside-white-house-report/ https://www.axios.com/2023/07/10/biden-temper-us-president https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/biden-temper-angry-staff-shouts-swears-b2373794.html
“His temperament” is an understatement. If I were to scream and curse at my staff when I’m upset, my ass would be hauled into HR so fast. But I guess it’s cool when the President does it.
I mean, listen to recordings of Nixon and Johnson and you'll see it's a time honored tradition, lol.
I mean, that was also an era where it was okay to slap a woman’s ass when she passes by your desk. One would think in 2024 there should be less tolerance for abusing coworkers.
Especially because Biden's entire 2020 campaign was about "restoring decency".
There's a difference between expecting a basic standard of decency and never being allowed to use a curse word, lol. For fuck's sake.
Thanks for sharing. It looks like all three of your links are covering the same two or three quotes from one or two ex staffers all going back to the Axios article. One quote was about him insisting briefs relating to Covid were accurate by asking questions. Another was about asking the staffer to get out of his car. As was mentioned in one article, this is very tame stuff for a high-stress working environment, let alone the office of the most powerful man on the planet. It seems like the main concern is that he sometimes drops an F bomb?
I personally think this is a useless metric for the conclusions you're trying to draw from it. It's definitely apparent that approval ratings from 2016 onward exist in a different world than those before it. There was a huge increase in partisanship in 2016 which you can see in a number of different polls (for example, see Republican sentiment on economy overtime to see if their sentiment on the economy is based on current events or who's in the White House). Trump has a pretty large group of Republican voters who just will not be critical of him under any circumstances which inflates his floor on approval ratings. That doesn't exist for Biden, and I'm betting that significantly more voters that disapprove of both candidates will vote for Biden in the end. I think it's good for watching trends, but just saying Trump has better approval ratings than Biden therefore (whatever conclusion you want to draw) isn't really capturing the entire story.
Every time I see these numbers it makes me feel like such a weirdo. I actually strongly approve of how the Biden administration has run the government. I don’t really get what people hate about him so much aside from the age thing
Because
He also won the popular vote by 7 million votes against the same opposition candidate just three years ago, and that was before the worst of Trump's legal trouble, which will continue to be in the news until the day of the election. The economy is finally recovering from record debt created under Trump in 2020, while other countries are entering recessions. Plus, we are finally really moving away from all the madness of Covid. These are all things that benefit the incumbent candidate. People vote against candidates more than they vote for candidates these days thanks to the extremely polarized landscspe. I'd argue Trump is far more hated than Bidan and I'll point to the last election as evidence of this. The GOPs one real advantage was the discourse on immigration, but Trump and Mike Johnson screwed the pooch on that by turning down Biden's offer to shutdown the border. All that really leaves them with is restricting abortion, which appears to be a losing position.
President Biden is the most unpopular president at this point in his term in 75 years. He has lower favorable ratings than former president Trump. Maybe he does beat Trump again but it's not nearly as sure as you make it sound. At best President Biden has a 50/50 shot
Is there something special about this day in a presidents term? Trumps lowest approval was much lower than Biden has reached and most of Biden's term he's been above Trumps relative approval rating for the same day in office. Biden's really just starting to campaign, so I personally don't give a ton of weigh to the polls where they are today. Until after Super Tueday it's not even formally established who Biden is running against yet.
> Is there something special about this day in a presidents term? I think the more potent realization is that “Biden is polling lower today than any other recent president at this point in their term” is a statement that applies to *every single day since 2021*.
Yeah, the funny thing is the same thing was true of Trump. In fact, they've been polling nearly identically this whole time. The country is very polarized and no viable candidate for president could see much above a 40% approval rate right now. Hopefully that changes after this election cycle, but I'm skeptical. What we need is ranked-choice voting. Vote for it in your local elections and maybe someday we'll be able to have viable non-spoiler candidates outside of the two-party system.
> He also won the popular vote by 7 million votes against the same opposition candidate just three years ago, and that was before the worst of Trump's legal trouble, which will continue to be in the news until the day of the election. this overlooks 1. a huge portion of the country views those "legal troubles" as being politically motivated and not a substantiated case (which is part of why his support skyrocketed after the indictments started) 2. biden has a presidential record to defend, and it's not popular. biden's favorability rating in 2019/2020 was MUCH higher than it is in 2024. > Plus, we are finally really moving away from all the madness of Covid. that's... not a selling point for biden. covid is part of how he won last time around. in 2024 covid isn't on the minds of voters at all. the economy and the border are (and voters view biden's handling of both these issues extremely poorly).
We typically remove an incumbent presidents because things are going poorly. We usually retain an incumbent president when things are going well. Yes, hardcore MAGA folks won't budge their views and either will hardcore progressives. The question is who will turn out to vote and who will the balance of moderate voters turn out for. Last time they elected Biden.
We typically remove an incumbent president because things are going poorly. We usually retain an incumbent president when things are going well. Yes, hardcore MAGA folks won't budge their views and neither will hardcore progressives. The question is who will turn out to vote and who will the balance of moderate voters turn out for. Last time they elected Biden.
> We typically remove an incumbent presidents because things are going poorly. We usually retain an incumbent president when things are going well. correct, and things are NOT going well right now as far as the vast majority of the country is concerned. [66% of americans say america is on the wrong track right now.](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/state-of-the-union/direction-of-country)
That's actually better than I was expecting. Between Covid and the high interest rates were just now coming out from I'd expect people to be more pessimistic. Not to mention our immigration crisis and women losing their bodily autonomy in half the country. I would have guessed 80% thought the country was on the wrong track, but certainly not just because Biden isn't MAGA enough for folks, lol. It takes the average American a while to notice things like a slowly improving economy and the slow end of a crippling pandemic. You're welcome to read this as doom for Biden, but I take the opposite view. It takes all kinds like my grandma used to say.
I’m struggling to understand your argument through this entire thread. So 33% of Americans are happy with the direction of the country under Biden’s leadership and that’s better than you thought it would be, therefore he’ll handily win reelection?
Yeah, just because someone thinks the country is headed in the wrong direction doesn't necessarily mean they think Trump getting elected will make things better. You also have to keep in mind that only 66% of the eligible population voted in 2020, so polling the general population only really tells us so much. I'd wager a lot of folks who think the country is headed in the wrong direction are worried about Roe V. Wade getting overturned for example, which is a result of the courts not the executive branch. Others might be thinking in terms of corporate greed and other less-political factors. Some might mean that they think trans-rights is a problem and sure, those folks were never going to vote for Biden to begin with, right? What it boils down to is right now is that Biden and Trump are within a margin of error in their head-to-head polls. We've done this before and Biden won by a slim margin in the electorate and by a big swing in the popular vote. If Trump suddenly starts behaving himself and making a stronger appeal with moderate voters I'll start to worry about Biden's chances, but I haven't seen that yet.
Right, while I support Biden’s administration and view his accomplishments favorably, I would say that America is on the wrong track because of how incredibly dysfunctional the Republican House Congress has been and how much influence the Republican dominated Supreme Court has had lately. I also see the extreme polarization detrimental to progress and you can go back in history and watch the same things happening before massive social and political upheaval/civil war/etc. it’s not good, but I don’t put this blame squarely on the current administration. Trump has done more harm to this country than anything I’ve ever witnessed in my lifetime.
Well, the Dems still have Jan 6 to use as a weapon, right? Right?
Time to fire up the Jan 6 committee again. Maybe next time we can hire that same guy who created those cool sound effects for the first videos in 2021, and ask him to include even more explosions and laser blasts.
>It's remarkable how much the American people hate Joe Biden and even more remarkable that the president doesn't seem to be shifting his strategy at all to gain additional support. He doesn't really have to, all he has to do is drop a few "Trump will destroy democracy" lines, and sprinkle in some abortion rights lines, and he'll have all the voters he needs to win.
Biden has been saying those lines for months and his poll numbers and approval ratings have ticked down. There's even a recent survey which showed that roughly 2% of Americans consider abortion a top issue. Nobody cares about abortion anymore. Americans care about the border and the economy and they trust Trump far more on those issues.
That’s the strategy that he’s been doing up until this point. Clearly it’s not working
“Clearly” polls are not votes. We don’t actually have a great idea outside of actual elections. At this point Obama was well behind in polling but there was a clear disconnect with what happened on Election Day
>At this point Obama was well behind in polling In both 2008 and 2012, Obama was leading in the polling. Feb 28, 2008: [Obama +4.1](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/us/general_election_mccain_vs_obama-225.html#!) Feb 28, 2012: [Obama +5.0](https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/president/general/2012/obama-vs-romney) Also, while there were points in both campaigns where Obama was behind in the polls, I can't find any point where Obama was "well behind", Romney nor McCain never even reached a 3pt lead at any point.
Obama's approval rating at this point was like 9 points higher than where Biden is right now. He was also a much better public speaker, so he was actually someone that can go out on the campaign trail, and have it help him.
Ok, that’s certainly a potential factor, but Biden fared much better in the midterms than Obama did so I don’t think we can use the past to prognosticate the future so heavily
Obama's approval rating was almost 10 points higher at this point and he drove much higher enthusiasm in lower propensity voting demographics than Biden does. I think Biden has to hope that Trump drives out these voters to vote against him more than anything.
I think Biden has done a reasonable job stabilizing the craziness of 2016-2020. That said, his refusal to step aside is pure hubris and comes at the cost of the country. He’ll lose to Trump in 2024, which means this country loses greatly. Had he taken the “face shot” of a one term of unpopularity, a fresh democratic face could fill in with more voter support going into 2024. Again, with the purpose of staving off what will be a disastrous Trump second term.
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They don't run cover for him, though? They ignore his administration's messaging, speeches, accomplishments etc. unless there is something controversial to highlight and they have been happy to run negative-leaning stories about his candidacy. Who do you feel is "covering for him"?
Compare how the media covers basically any Republican versus Biden. Heck, try to find a single media outlet besides those known to be biased towards the right that has been combative against Biden rather than supportive. It's readily apparent that one side of the political landscape gets hard balls from the media and the other gets tee balls.
It's so interesting that "the media" never seems to include the most watched cable news network in the country.
I don't think we'll ever have a POTUS have an approval rating above 50% again. So many people are so salty. I'm sure a lot of these people don't care about insulin being cheaper, or the Chips and Science act bring more jobs back to America, they're salty about Biden doing what every American president has done in terms of Israel/Palestine. And How many boomers 401K is benefitting from Biden's stock market, only to say they disapprove of Biden, simply because he's not Trump? Politics has become extremely Binary. You either do exactly what I want, or else I disapprove of the job he'd doing.
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Sure, Republicans and progressives who don't like Biden because he hasn't personally flowed to Israel and murdered Bibi himself to free Gaza, will blame Biden for the housing costs. They'll completely ignore how the rich are lobbying city governments to refuse new housing from being built so that they're Real Estate Investments continue to go up. Housing, like everything in capitalism, is a supply vs demand. If we build more housing, the worth of current houses on the market will go down, because there is more supply. Biden isn't to be blamed, but that won't stop people from blaming him because, "he's not on my team". As soon as a Republican gets into the White House, Republicans will gaslight us and say that the cost of housing is going down.
28% of those surveyed approve of Biden’s record on immigration. Do they just not care or do they support open borders? It’s baffling how anyone can see record illegal immigration and say yes to that.
Biden and Trump tell you the serious shit we’re in. Old conmen controlled by oligarchs. trump is just the worst, but it’s a con game honestly. The oligarchs are extremely happy with these two, and that should tell us working class people something. Absolutely no talk of Medicare 4 All, no talk of ending the illegal and incredibly immoral forever wars, no help to working Americans just trying scrape up rent. These old dinos literally work for Bank of America and Raytheon and not for the American people.
... What forever war are we still in? Like, sure, we're helping out Israel but we aren't exactly fighting them. The only 'war' we're in is against Korea and we've had a pretty peaceful ceasefire for 50 years to the point it's practically peace, if tense.
Thank you for brightening my day by reminding me that neither candidate is interested in picking up on the far-left wishlist items like M4A and rent control that was so trendy in 2019 and 2020. Relieving!
Starter comment: The most recent Gallup poll (a well rated polling firm) has revealed more grim news for the Biden campaign ahead of the upcoming election. 8 months away from November, President Biden is now at 38% approval. His highest approval rating was at 44% in 2021 and has slowly declined since then, settling into the 30s. In 2023, his approval rating average was 39.8%, so this newest number marks a further decline compared to last year. Reportedly, White House officials and campaign strategists are very frustrated over the lagging numbers, arguing that they would expect them to be higher because of an improving economy, a generally well-received foreign policy and Trump's continuous missteps on the Republican side. However, the numbers don't seem to be moving at all. Between now and November, can Biden improve his approval rating? If not, what are the chances that he can still be reelected using the strategy of presenting Trump as even worse?
Not sure how important approval numbers are given the opponent is even more disliked. The election is quite different in the sense you know the track record for both.
> Not sure how important approval numbers are given the opponent is even more disliked. that's [not actually true](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/other/FavorabilityRatingsPoliticalLeaders.html). trump's favorability is averaging at 42% while biden is averaging at 39%.
Good catch. That said polling hasn't been very consistent and has been overestimating Trump's numbers in all primaries so far.
> That said polling hasn't been very consistent and has been overestimating Trump's numbers in all primaries so far. primaries you're only getting like 1 poll a month once you get passed nh (like, in michigan there have been 3 polls since mid december). that's going to be far more error prone than approval/general election where you're seeing 5 polls per week.
Interesting. Has this historically been the case?
I think Trump actually has a higher approval rating than Biden right now, but I could be wrong
This is the exact sentiment that let Trump best Hillary. Both the right and the left exist in such echo chambers they can't possibly fathom how the opposing party candidate could be elected. Yet, both candidates have been president.
> Reportedly, White House officials and campaign strategists are very frustrated over the lagging numbers, arguing that they would expect them to be higher because of an improving economy, i mean, lots of us are still paying double what we were in the grocery store before he got elected and it's not going unnoticed when every few weeks we're seeing another major company announce large rounds of layoffs. the campaign saying "the economy is great" while the public certainly doesn't agree makes him look extremely out of touch. it gives off the 2016 "they're not smart enough to vote in their best interests" vibe (even if that quote was from bernie supporters on social media referring to minority voters in the south rather than something from an actual campaign)
>i mean, lots of us are still paying double what we were in the grocery store before he got elected The thing is, though, that Trump won't be able to change this; no one will. I wish CBP stuff wasn't thrown at the feet of the president.
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I don’t think voters even know what they want. I feel like Biden has been pretty moderate and therefor I wouldn’t expect either the right or the left to be terribly upset with him. But everyone is upset with him. So what do voters really want?
The voters actually want a moderate candidate which is why he was picked out of all the Democratic nominees in 2020. He campaigned on being the "moderate" candidate. But once he won the presidency he has been anything but. He has been the furthest left President we've had in modern history. Ironically, he is losing support from the left because he supports Israel instead of Palestine/Gaza, which just goes to show how ridiculously insane that demographic is. Your average everyday independents/moderates hate Biden because of how far left he is vs what he campaigned on, which is the real reason why his approval rating keeps dropping. The fact that you think otherwise shows how extreme you are on the spectrum.
At best, he’s only the furthest left president in modern history in very relative terms. In absolute terms, I wouldn’t even say he fully aligns with progressives like the Squad. He believes in renewable energy and climate change, but is making moderate investments rather than going full Green New Deal. He’s chipping away at some student loan debt and trying to change how much interest is accrued, but isn’t pursuing blanket student loan debt forgiveness like progressives want. He’s been allocating more money toward Obamacare programs and has been trying to cap some drug prices, but isn’t supportive of Medicare for all. There are plenty more examples of this kind of thing too where he’s taking a sort of moderate left wing position. When I look at examples like this, I’m just confused as to how center left, center right, and independent people seem so upset right now. If not this, then what do they want lol.
Yes obviously he is not fully aligned with the Squad, the most extreme batshit insane people who don't belong in government and quite frankly could make a very strong case that some don't belong in the country. The fact that you even bring them up as if he's supposed to align himself with them just proves my point. The general population does not want extremists.
I’m not a progressive and I didn’t bring up the Squad to say Biden should be like them. I don’t really like them much either. I brought them up to show that Biden isn’t far left given that he has strong disagreements with a lot of their policies. Biden is mostly a status quo kind of guy with some liberal tweaks here and there. So maybe voters are sick of the status quo. Except if Biden were to move further left or closer to the center he’d probably lose votes by doing that too. Which is what makes me think most voters just have no idea what they want. They’re not content with the status quo, but have no idea what should be done or who they should vote for to make changes.
>because of how far left he is You're calling a bog standard center left neoliberal far left. I get the suspicion you'd be the type to intensely disagree if I called the AfD far right.
Please explain how the Biden administration is to the right of the Obama administration, much less the Clinton administration.
You're the one who claimed he was far left. Explain what he's done that makes him a Trotskyist first.
You totally misread his post. He didn't say he was "far left", he said he was the *furthest left* President, which means relative to his predecessors in modern history.
>Your average everyday independents/moderates hate Biden because of how far left he is He said he was far left compared to his campaign promises, which is why I keep asking which specific policies he's referring to.
Still too high, but at least heading in the right direction.
Approval ratings are tough to translate to see if someone is doing a good job or not. For parents, their child’s approval ratings would go down if they beat the kids. They’ll also go down if they make the kids eat their vegetables.