BIDEN’S APPROVAL RATING HITS NEW LOW
In poll, 63% say he doesn’t have mental acuity to be effective
As he begins his campaign for re-election, President Joe Biden faces substantial and multiple challenges, according to a Washington Post-ABC News survey. His overall approval ratings have slipped to a new low, more Americans than not doubt his mental acuity, and his support against leading Republican challengers is far shakier than at this point four years ago.
Former President Donald Trump leads a still-forming field of candidates for the Republican nomination, receiving about twice as much support as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. But Trump carries his own baggage, with a majority saying he should face criminal charges in cases involving efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election, events leading to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a proTrump mob and his handling of classified documents.
Biden’s emphasis on what his campaign calls a freedom agenda was an early indication of his determination to shift voters’ focus away from their reservations about him and instead make the 2024 general election a choice rather than a referendum. Even among fellow Democrats, most say they prefer that their party nominate “someone other than Biden,” a view that has been consistent in polls since before the midterm elections in which Democrats performed far better
than expected.
Biden’s overall job approval rating stands at 36 percent, down from 42 percent in February and about the same as the previous low of 37 percent in a Post-ABC poll conducted in early 2022. His disapproval stands at 56 percent, including 47 percent who disapprove “strongly.” Other recent polls have pegged Biden’s approval in the low 40s without a decline in recent months.
Biden’s approval rating is underwater among a slew of groups that supported him by wide margins in 2020. He stands at 26 percent approval among Americans under age 30, 42 percent among non-White adults, 41 percent
among urban residents and 46 percent of those with no religious affiliation. Among independents who voted for Biden in 2020, 57 percent approve while 30 percent disapprove. Among independents who voted for Trump, 96 percent disapprove.
Biden’s approval ratings, however, are only part of a broader and largely negative assessment of him as a candidate for re-election.
Biden has presided over an economy that has included strong job growth and low unemployment but also high inflation. While inflation has declined in recent months, Americans across party lines continue to express concern about prices
and rate the economy negatively overall. Markets remain sluggish in the face of concerns that the Federal Reserve’s efforts to curb inflation will trigger a recession or additional bank failures.
Biden inherited from Trump an economy badly damaged by the coronavirus pandemic, but the public sees the former president as a better economic steward than the incumbent. In the poll, by 54 percent to 36 percent, Americans say Trump did a better job handling the economy when he was president than Biden has done during his presidency so far.
Biden would be 82 at the beginning of a second term and 86 at its end. Republicans
have made clear that they will raise questions about his capacities — Trump and others do so regularly — and the president himself has said voters have every right to consider his age as they think about their 2024 choice.
Doubts about how well Biden would perform have risen since he ran in 2020. Today, 63 percent say he does not have the mental sharpness to serve effectively as president, up from 43 percent in 2020 and 54 percent a year ago. A similar 62 percent say Biden is not in good enough physical health to be effective.
Trump, the leading candidate for the GOP nomination, will be 78 in January 2025 at the time of the next inauguration. But in contrast to Biden, most Americans (54 percent) say he is sufficiently sharp mentally to serve as president and 64 percent say he is physically fit enough to serve.
Another warning sign for Biden and his team comes in hypothetical ballot tests. Throughout the 2020 campaign, Biden generally led Trump in head-to-head preelection polls — and in November 2020, he won 51 percent of the popular vote to Trump’s 47 percent. Today, Biden is running behind the former president on the question of whom voters prefer for 2024.
Asked who they would support in 2024, 44 percent of voting-age adults say they would “definitely” or “probably” vote for Trump while 38 percent would definitely or probably vote for Biden. The remaining 18 percent are either undecided or gave another answer.
If DeSantis were the Republican nominee, 42 percent today say they would definitely or probably vote for the governor, as 37 percent would back Biden and 21 percent are undecided or chose another option.
The Post-ABC News poll was conducted April 28 through May 3, among a random national sample of 1,006 U.S. adults, with 75 percent reached on cellphones and 25 percent on landlines. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. The error margin is 5.5 points among the samples of 438 Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and 396 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents.