We unpack the president’s prospects moving forward.
Back in 2020, Joe Biden earned the votes of more than 81 million Americans, the highest total in the history of our presidential elections. (To accomplish that, he surpassed the previous record of 74 million, which was held by his former running mate, Barack Obama.) But halfway through his term, the future prospects for our 46th commander-in-chief aren’t as rosy as they once looked.
We’re still two years out from the next presidential contest — and we’ve got the deeply important 2022 midterms to get through first — but politics is all about perception, and right now, more and more commentators are calling Biden a losing bet. Here’s what you need to know about where the president stands.
Biden’s approval metrics are dragging significantly, even among Democrats
Amid an onslaught of mass shootings, the Supreme Court’s dismantling of Roe v. Wade and the abortion rights it protected, and a fragile economy that threatens to dip into a recession, Biden’s approval rating has hit a dismal 33 percent.
And while that number includes the opinions of staunch Republicans who were never going to be satisfied with his performance, the forecast isn’t any sunnier among his own party: A new poll from the New York Times found that a whopping 64 percent of Democratic voters say they don’t want Biden to seek another term in 2024.
Those numbers are pretty startling, especially when compared with his predecessor. It’s safe to say Donald Trump was one of the most divisive presidents in history — and that could even be an understatement — but in the home stretch of the 2020 campaign, when a measly 6 percent of Democrats approved of Trump’s job as president, he still boasted a staggering 87 percent approval rating among Republicans. The fact that Biden’s party is seemingly turning on him is a definite red flag.
The next presidential election could be a rematch, whether anyone wants it or not
Unless Biden actively steps back from a second campaign, his nomination for another term is all but sewn up; an incumbent president exists at the center of their party, and other Democrats would be reluctant to challenge the coalition’s standard-bearer if the rest of the establishment is on board. And considering Trump’s plans for 2024 already appear to be shaping up in particularly concrete fashion, it’s increasingly likely that we’re headed for a 2020 do-over.
For his part, Biden sees that as a promising prospect for himself. He said as much back in March, telling reporters, “The next election, I would be very fortunate if I had that same man running against me.”
Voters, meanwhile, are sending quite a different message. Another poll released earlier this month found that seven in 10 Americans don’t want Biden to run again, while six in 10 don’t want Trump to run again, either.
That said, Trump is currently mired in hot water of his own. As the Jan. 6 committee paints a blistering picture of his involvement in the violent riot at the U.S. Capitol, the former president faces the risk of potential prosecution, which could tank his shot at reclaiming the White House — if it actually happens.
The good news for Biden: The same New York Times poll in which a majority of Democrats said they don’t want him to run again also found that 92 percent of them would support him nonetheless if faced with the possibility of a second Trump term. And Biden currently has the edge in that hypothetical rematch, with the incumbent polling at 44 percent as compared to Trump’s 41 percent.
Biden’s age is becoming an obstacle
Before Joe Biden, the oldest president in American history was Ronald Reagan, who was 69 at his inauguration and 77 by the time he left office in 1989. (And within five years of that, Reagan announced he’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.) Biden beat that record from the day he took office. He was 78 on Jan. 20, 2021, and he’ll turn 80 this November.
If the president were to successfully win a second term and serve it in full, he would be 86 by the time he left the White House.
The conversation about Biden’s age has been top of mind since before he was elected. Throughout the 2020 campaign, Trump infamously coined the moniker “Sleepy Joe” and denigrated his opponent as incoherent and incapable of performing the duties of the nation’s highest office.
Back then, Democratic strategists waved off the questions about Biden’s health as punching below the belt, and some commentators even argued Trump’s insults were actually good for Biden politically because it created such a low bar for his performance in debates.
But now, with 2024 in the offing, Democrats are joining the worried chorus of people who say it’s simply irresponsible to elect a man who would be pushing 90 before he vacated his office. Political reporters are turning out story after story capturing a growing sense of panic within the Democratic party as leaders recognize Biden’s liabilities and yet remain paralyzed in formulating an alternate plan.
And though Biden’s personal doctor has officially evaluated him as “a healthy, vigorous 78-year-old male who is fit to successfully execute the duties of the Presidency,” the plain reality is that his age is at the top of voters’ minds, especially as they see videos like this one in which Biden fell off a bicycle last month.
In yet another story exploring the political challenges Biden’s age poses, The New York Times spoke with S. Jay Olshansky, a longevity specialist who studied the ages of the 2020 presidential candidates. He told the paper that while there’s no current evidence Biden is unfit for his office, voters’ worries make biological sense.
“That’s the right question to be asking,” Olshansky said. “You can’t sugarcoat aging. Things go wrong as we get older and the risks rise the older we get.”
What’s next?
Amid reports that Trump could be planning to formally announce his candidacy as early as this summer to counteract the bad press coming out of the Jan. 6 hearings, Democrats are feeling the pressure to mobilize as soon as possible.
According to Biden, he’s all set for another campaign. The Hill reported in April that he’s told Barack Obama he’s planning on a run in 2024, and the president has delivered the same message publicly.
“The answer is yes, my plan is to run for re-election,” he said in March 2021. “That’s my expectation.”
But phrases like “that’s my expectation” are carrying lots of weight in the eyes of informed observers. Biden gave a similarly hedged answer back in December 2021, when he was asked by ABC News anchor David Muir whether he intended to pursue reelection.
“Yes,” Biden answered. “But look, I’m a great respecter of fate. Fate has intervened in my life many, many times. If I’m in the health I’m in now, if I’m in good health, then in fact, I would run again.”
Some strategists have wondered aloud whether Biden is intending to leave the door open for ultimately deciding not to run without making himself an immediate lame duck. But that reading could be looking a little too deeply between the lines.
The Washington Post reported last month that in private, Biden has been “effectively shutting down any discussion of the topic” of whether he may not run, and his advisers are actively working to “send every possible message” that the president will, in fact, toss his hat in the ring yet again — and that another Trump candidacy would make it even more likely that Biden will do so.
And even if Biden did step aside, Democrats have another problem: There’s no slam-dunk contender waiting in the wings who looks poised for victory in his absence. The most obvious next choice would be Vice President Kamala Harris, though her own approval rating is nothing to boast about. And beyond that, the thin field of other possible 2024 candidates isn’t particularly reassuring for party leaders.
All things considered, it’s safe to say Democrats’ worries about what’s to come are looking increasingly well-founded.
