Democrats are banking on Donald Trump’s legal troubles and turning a blind eye to Biden’s age and other failings, and it is going to cost them the White House in 2024!
The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll has Biden trailing Donald Trump by nine points, 42% to 51%. Much like being told they have a terminal illness, progressive pundits have reacted with denial, anger, and bargaining.
Behind the numbers are some basic facts Democrats ignore at their peril:
- The president’s age and questionable capacity to do his job are serious concerns for voters, with 74% of those ABC polled saying Biden is too old for another term. Doubts about his fitness will grow as voters see more of him on the campaign trail.
- Only 23% approve of the way Biden is handling immigration.
- He fares little better when voters are asked about the economy: Just 30% approve of his performance.
- In contrast, the public sees the Trump years more favorably: ABC gauged approval for Trump’s record at 38% when he left office. Now, that’s up to 48%.
Democrats can choose to read only polls that tell a reassuring story — but there are fewer and fewer of those. Most instead show a dead heat between Trump and Biden in 2024, and recent averages indicate the contest is tilting to Trump.
The issues on which next year’s election will be fought look dire for Biden.
Democratic mayors from Oscar Leeser in El Paso to Eric Adams in New York have acknowledged that migration has reached crisis proportions — “a breaking point,” in Leeser’s words.
Crime and homelessness are so bad in blue cities that the Democratic mayor of Dallas recently switched to the GOP. If this is what urban mayors think, you don’t need polls to tell you how voters feel.
Any incumbent in this environment would have to be an energetic salesman to convince voters they’re better off than they were four years ago.
Biden has neither the energy nor the salesmanship.
Four years ago, Democrats harnessed a backlash against Donald Trump, in the midst of COVID and the George Floyd ordeal, to elect Biden.
But now that voters can make a direct comparison between the Trump and Biden eras, the juxtaposition doesn’t favor Biden.
And if Trump has personal qualities that bother voters, they don’t trouble them as much as Biden’s advancing decrepitude does.
If the Dems stick with Biden, and all indications are that they will, they do so at their peril. The polls and the issues of immigration, the economy, and Biden’s advanced age all add up to Biden losing in a rematch against Trump.