Did You Think They Were Playing?

Biden and Trump both lagging.

The New York Times wrote a piece that will have the president grumbling.

The New York Times/Sienna Poll released showed that former president Donald J. Trump is leading against President Joe Biden by 5 points. It should raise concern for Biden and Democrats.

Since none of his adamant supporters are dismissing those concerns, I will directly tell you. I told you in previous posts that Biden's support and unilateral support for Israel will be his downfall. I said that the Democrats tone deaf response to Israel will be the biggest setback. I work two jobs and living paycheck to paycheck. I haven't taken a vacation since 2017. Food prices are still high. I am still trying to figure out why Congress continue to give taxpayer money to foreign nations. Although I am not concerned about his age, a lot of others are. I am not concerned with immigration but some folks seriously believe that immigrants are getting far more resources than them. They believe that the illegal border crossings are out of control.

So I will tell you, it is not only the economy, but the president still represents status quo.

Same with Trump. I made more money under him, but was less safe under his leadership. He let people die in a pandemic. He gave comfort to haters and bigotry. He acts like he a strong leader but in reality he is a dottering fool.

The president may have a war chest and a strategy but will it be enough to beat Trump.

With eight months left until the November election, Biden’s 43 percent support lags behind Trump’s 48 percent in the national survey of registered voters.

Only one in four voters think the country is moving in the right direction. More than twice as many voters believe Biden’s policies have personally hurt them as believe his policies have helped them. A majority of voters think the economy is in poor condition. And the share of voters who strongly disapprove of Biden’s handling of his job has reached 47 percent, higher than in Times/Siena polls at any point in his presidency.

The poll offers an array of warning signs for the president about weaknesses within the Democratic coalition, including among women, Black and Latino voters. So far, it is Trump who has better unified his party, even amid an ongoing primary contest.

Biden has marched through the early nominating states with only nominal opposition. But the poll showed that Democrats remain deeply divided about the prospect of Biden, the 81-year-old chief executive, leading the party again. About as many Democratic primary voters said Biden should not be the nominee in 2024 as said he should be — with opposition strongest among voters younger than 45 years old.

Trump’s ability to consolidate the Republican base better than Biden has unified the base of his own party shows up starkly in the current thinking of 2020 voters. Trump is winning 97 percent of those who say they voted for him four years ago, and virtually none of his past supporters said they are casting a ballot for Biden. In contrast, Biden is winning only 83 percent of his 2020 voters, with 10 percent saying they now back Trump.

“It’s going to be a very tough decision — I’m seriously thinking about not voting,” said Mamta Misra, 57, a Democrat and an economics professor in Lafayette, La., who voted for Biden in 2020. “Trump voters are going to come out no matter what. For Democrats, it’s going to be bad. I don’t know why they’re not thinking of someone else.”

Trump’s five-point lead in the survey, which was conducted in late February, is slightly larger than in the last Times/Siena national poll of registered voters in December. Among the likely electorate, Trump currently leads by four percentage points.

In last year’s survey, Trump led by two points among registered voters and Biden led by two points among the projected likely electorate.

One of the more ominous findings for Biden in the new poll is that the historical edge Democrats have held with working-class voters of color who did not attend college continues to erode.

Biden won 72 percent of those voters in 2020, according to exit polling, providing him with a nearly 50-point edge over Trump. Today, the Times/Siena poll showed Biden only narrowly leading among nonwhite voters who did not graduate from college: 47 percent to 41 percent.

An excitement gap between the two parties shows up repeatedly in the survey: Only 23 percent of Democratic primary voters said they were enthusiastic about Biden — half the share of Republicans who said they were about Trump. Significantly more Democrats said they were either dissatisfied or angry at Biden being the leader of the party (32 percent) than Republicans who said the same about Trump (18 percent).

Both Trump and Biden are unpopular. Trump had a weak 44 percent favorable rating; Biden fared even worse, at 38 percent. Among the 19 percent of voters who said they disapproved of both likely nominees — an unusually large cohort in 2024 that pollsters and political strategists sometimes call “double haters” — Biden actually led Trump, 45 percent to 33 percent.

The candidate who had won such “double haters” was victorious in the elections in both 2016 and 2020.

For now, though, unhappiness with the state of the country is plainly a drag on Biden’s prospects. Two-thirds of the country feels the nation is headed in the wrong direction — and Trump is winning 63 percent of those voters.

The share of voters who believe the nation is on the right track remains a dismal and diminutive minority at 24 percent. Yet even that figure is a marked improvement from the peak inflationary days in the summer of 2022, when only 13 percent of voters felt the nation was headed in the proper direction.