Octogenarian President Joe Biden faces the worst approval numbers of any president one year out from a reelection bid since… Jimmy Carter in 1979. And we know what happened to him—a landslide defeat at the hands of Ronald Reagan.
As my colleague Mike Miller reported, new polling shows that former President Donald Trump has pulled ahead of Biden in polling:
Per the polling data, while Trump leads Biden in five of the six most important battleground states — all of which Biden carried in 2020 — just one year out from the election, Biden continues to suffer from growing serious doubts about everything from his age to his mishandling of the economy to the never-ending border crisis to now, his potentially ominous handling of the Israel-Hamas War.
Biden’s Gallup approval rating sits at an abysmal 37 percent, which is not a good sign for his chances:
That is lower at the same stage than his six immediate predecessors - Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan.
Two of them - Trump and George H.W. Bush - failed to get re-elected despite having higher approval ratings than Biden.
Only Jimmy Carter, who was on 32 per cent, was more unpopular than Biden with a year to go…
Another poll shows similar results:
Many pundits believe an incumbent needs to be around 50 percent to have a good chance at reelection. At the beginning of his presidency, Joe sat at a cool 57 percent, so he has fallen hard.
At this time in their first term, Ronald Reagan polled a 53 percent approval rating, Bush the Senior stood at 59 percent, Bill Clinton at 52 percent, George W. Bush at 54 percent, Barack Obama at 43 percent, and Donald Trump at 43 percent as well. The most surprising thing about those numbers is George H. W. Bush's rating—his 59 was the highest of them all, yet he went on to lose to Bill Clinton in 1992. Many attribute the loss to the third-party candidacy of Ross Perot and to Bush's ill-fated vow, "read my lips, no new taxes."
At this point in his presidency, Trump's rating was six points higher than Biden's is now.
It's not hard to understand why—Joe is arguably one of the worst presidents in our nation's history, and beginning with his disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, more and more Americans have started to realize it. As RedState's Bonchie wrote Sunday, inflation and soaring interest rates have killed the middle-class dream for many Americans. "'Bidenomics' was always one of the worst White House messaging campaigns in modern history," he opined.
Meanwhile, Biden's purposely porous southern border has created a humanitarian crisis and threatened the nation's security.
Now he's getting smacked around on both sides over his handling of the Israel-Hamas war. Many feel he needs to stand strong with Israel, but then many in his own party openly side with Hamas to the point where it's causing division in his own ranks:
Growing DNC Divisions Over Israel-Hamas War Threaten Biden's Reelection Campaign
If you just go by the numbers, it would seem as if Biden's going to get the boot in 2024. However, it's not guaranteed, unfortunately, because who would have ever thought a two-time failed presidential candidate would win on his third try—while campaigning from his basement?