Many Democrats would prefer another candidate than Biden, poll shows

Most Democrats want to see a candidate other than President Joe Biden on the ballot in 2024, according to a new poll.

A separate analysis shows Biden has a lower approval rating at this point in his presidency than any president since Harry S. Truman in the 1940s.

A New York Times/Siena College poll released Monday showed 64% of Democratic voters said they would prefer a different Democratic candidate in the upcoming presidential election. That percentage grew to 94% among Democrats under the age of 30, according to the survey.

Biden’s approval rating among Democrats sits at 33%, The Times reported.

In a separate analysis of all Biden-related polling, the website FiveThirtyEight said Biden’s approval rating had fallen from more than 50% at the start of his administration to about 38.4%.

As of July 8, Biden’s 535th day in office, his approval rating was lower than that of any other president since Truman, whose approval rating stood at 33% at the same point in his presidency, FiveThirtyEight said. At the same point in their presidencies, Donald Trump’s approval rating stood at 42.1%, Barack Obama’s was 46.3%, George W. Bush’s was 66.9% and Bill Clinton’s was 46%.

An Associated Press analysis of Biden’s presidency from his first Fourth of July in office to his second earlier this month noted that “a series of unforeseen challenges have Biden struggling for footing” heading into the mid-term elections in November.

“We expect the president to be all powerful and be able to fix every problem,” said Lindsay Chervinsky, a presidential historian. “It’s a completely unrealistic expectation and, frankly, a dangerous one.”

In the New York Times/Siena College poll, only about 13% of respondents said they thought the country was on the right track – the lowest point in Times polling since the financial crisis more than a decade ago.

About 20% of survey respondents said jobs and the economy were their top concerns, followed by inflation and the cost of living at 15%. More than three-quarters of the respondents called the economy “extremely important,” and just 1% rated the economy as being in excellent condition.

“We used to spend $200 a week just going out to have fun, or going and buying extra groceries if we needed it, and now we can’t even do that,” Kelly King, a former factory worker in Greensburg, Ind., who can’t work because of a back injury, told the New York Times. “We’re barely able to buy what we need.”

She told the newspaper that she hopes Republicans take control of Congress in November.

Meanwhile, the late June U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade has increased the focus on mid-terms that some already predict could be a referendum on Biden’s first two years in office. The president’s response has been to sign an executive order protecting women who seek abortion care from potential consequences and urging Democrats to vote.

“The fastest way to restore Roe is to pass a national law,” Biden said last week. “The challenge is go out and vote.”

He predicted women would turn out in “record numbers” in November and “millions and millions” of men will join them. Five percent of the Times/Siena poll respondents called abortion the most important issue, including 1% of men and 9% of women.

The Times/Siena poll, conducted July 5-7, had a margin of error of 4.1%.