As President Joe Biden falls into the lowest approval ratings of his term, statistician and FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver floated Biden dropping out of the race as the best option for Democrats just five months before the 2024 election.
Biden’s approval rating hit an all-time low in recent days, according to FiveThirtyEight‘s average of polls, as the president now has a 37.6% approval rating. The downward trend for Biden prompted Silver to post on X on Monday that the 81-year-old president dropping out of the race is worth discussing — even if, at this point, it “would be a big risk” for Democrats.
“But there’s some threshold below which continuing to run is a bigger risk,” he added. “Are we there yet? I don’t know. But it’s more than fair to ask.”
“If I’d told you 10 years ago a president would seek re-election at 81 despite a supermajority of Americans having concerns about his age, and then we’d hit 8% inflation for 2 years, you wouldn’t be surprised he was an underdog for reelection. You’d be surprised it was even close!” Silver wrote.
One X user criticized Silver for asking if Biden should drop out after Donald Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the New York hush money case.
“‘Trump should drop out too!’ is such a weird dunk on people who are pointing out that Biden has big challenges,” Silver shot back. “Yes, Trump should drop out! I agree! Biden would lose by 7 points, but I agree, the Republican Party and the country would be better served by a different nominee.”
But Biden just hit a new all-time low in approval (37.4%) at 538 yesterday. Dropping out would be a big risk. But there’s some threshold below which continuing to run is a bigger risk. Are we there yet? I don’t know. But it’s more than fair to ask. pic.twitter.com/1nmoKQkW85
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 10, 2024
The statistician and writer then repeated an argument he’s been making for months, saying that Biden hurt Democrats’ 2024 chances by running for re-election.
“What’s clearer IMO is that Democrats would have been better served if Biden had decided a year ago not to seek a second term, which would have allowed them to have some semblance of a primary process and give voters a say among the many popular Democrats across the country,” Silver added.
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In February, Silver warned Democrats that Biden is on track to lose to Trump.
“If you’d asked me a year ago, I would have told you that Joe Biden was a reasonably clear favorite in the event of a rematch against Donald Trump,” he wrote in his “Silver Bulletin” newsletter, adding that in recent months, “Biden’s situation has become considerably worse.”
“If he were 10 years younger, he might still be a 65/35 favorite,” Silver wrote. “But if his campaign is substantially encumbered by his age, he’s probably the underdog.”
Along with the president’s poor approval rating, he is also falling behind Trump in most polls. The presumptive GOP presidential nominee currently leads Biden in each of the seven battleground states, according to the RealClearPolitics average of polls.