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Monday, July 11, 2022

Biden has "popularity" problems among many political blocs.

 With NY Times behind a subscription wall, luckily Seattle Times carried the feed:

For Biden, that bleak national outlook has pushed his job-approval rating to a perilously low point. Republican opposition is predictably overwhelming, but more than two-thirds of independents also now disapprove of the president’s performance, and nearly half disapprove strongly. Among fellow Democrats his approval rating stands at 70%, a relatively low figure for a president, especially heading into the 2022 midterms, when Biden needs to rally Democrats to the polls to maintain control of Congress.

In a sign of deep vulnerability and of unease among what is supposed to be his political base, only 26% of Democratic voters said the party should renominate him in 2024.

[...] The backlash against Biden and desire to move in a new direction were particularly acute among younger voters. In the survey, 94% of Democrats younger than 30 said they would prefer a different presidential nominee.

[...] In saying they wanted a different nominee in 2024, Democrats cited a variety of reasons, with the most in an open-ended question citing his age (33%), followed closely by unhappiness with how he is doing the job. About 1 in 8 Democrats just said that they wanted someone new, and 1 in 10 said he was not progressive enough. Smaller fractions expressed doubts about his ability to win and his mental acuity.

The Times/Siena survey of 849 registered voters nationwide was conducted July 5-7, in the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s June 24 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion, which had been protected for half a century. The ruling sent Democrats into the streets and unleashed an outpouring of political contributions.

Typically, voters aligned with the party in power — Democrats now hold the House, the Senate and the White House — are more upbeat about the nation’s direction. But only 27% of Democrats saw the country as on the right track. And with the fall of Roe, there was a notable gender gap among Democrats: Only 20% of Democratic women said the country was moving in the right direction, compared with 39% of Democratic men.

Overall, abortion rated as the most important issue for 5% of voters: 1% of men, 9% of women.

[...]  When Biden won in 2020, he made a point of trying to make inroads among working-class white voters who had abandoned the Democratic Party in droves in the Trump era. But whatever crossover appeal Biden once had appears diminished. His job approval rating among white voters without college degrees was a stark 20%.

[...] Biden’s base, in 2020 and now, remains Black voters. They delivered the president a 62% job-approval rating — higher marks than any other race or ethnicity, age group or education level. But even among that constituency, there are serious signs of weakening. On the question of renominating Biden in 2024, slightly more Black Democratic voters said they wanted a different candidate than said they preferred Biden.

As posted earlier, Crabgrass has thoughts about a "dream ticket" - or if not that a reasonably balanced ticket showing some recognition toward adding progressive appeal - something beyond Biden-Harris, which now even more than earlier fails to sing. Link

While Biden-Harris is growing less and less popular, the NYT item did note:

One glimmer of good news for Biden is that the survey showed him with a narrow edge in a hypothetical rematch in 2024 with former President Donald Trump: 44% to 41%.

BFD. That is now. Not November, 2024. And the item is silent about DeSantis, or Cruz. Crabgrass  would "lesser evil" again over any of those three Republicans, but Crabgrass is not necessarily the best barometer of nationwide sentiment. 

BOTTOM LINE: We have suffered enough. We deserve better. Progress is needed. If not Bernie or Warren, "better" still has a reach within the Democratic Party beyond those two bellwether names.

With it being 2022 and not 2024, the prize to keep eyes upon - Congress, state and local best options. Squelch Republicans. They have made things harder by far on Biden than Manchin and Sinema combined.

GOTV for this November. Then worry into 2024.