President Joe Biden is reportedly becoming anxious about his reelection odds against Republican Donald Trump as poll after poll shows Biden struggling against the former president.
Biden has lashed out at allies in strategy meetings and begun to question his intuition as his record fails to draw in more support. The White House and Democratic officials see the president’s primary shortcoming as that of messaging, according to NBC News.
The president believes that his record in the White House should be enough to win reelection if only Americans knew about it. Some see the messaging failure as a responsibility of locally elected Democratic leaders for not championing Biden’s policies enough; others say that the White House bears the blame, according to NBC.
Biden’s poor poll numbers are making some Democrats increasingly frustrated with the president, who is 81-years-old and also struggling to overcome concerns about his age and mental acuity.
“Biden stood up in front of the whole world and said, ‘I’m ready. I’m the guy who can take down Donald Trump,’” Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA) told NBC. “So, he godd*** well better do it. We don’t have time for him to be worried about whether or not people are saying things right or the poll numbers are where they should be. I want focused energy and not defensive anger.”
While the White House has backed away from scrutinizing the president’s record, polls suggest that voters have not. The president lags behind Trump as the candidate voters trust to handle issues such as immigration, the economy, and crime, according to a February 2024 YouGov poll. Biden has an edge on Trump on issues such as the environment, education, and LGBT issues, according to the poll.
Biden’s approval rating is deep underwater. The president’s average approval rating sits at 38.6%, a lower rating even than every president who has gone on to lose reelection in modern American history. Biden’s disapproval rating sits at an average of 55.4%, according to FiveThirtyEight.
In a New York Times/Siena poll published earlier this month, many more Americans reported that Trump’s policies were helpful to them than Biden’s. Forty percent of people told pollsters that Trump’s policies “helped you personally,” according to the poll. Just 18% said the same of Biden.