You’re invited! Join LifeSite in celebrating 25 years of pro-life and pro-family reporting at our anniversary Gala August 17th in Naples, Florida. Tickets and sponsorships can be purchased by clicking here.
(LifeSiteNews) — Only a third of Americans still approve of Joe Biden’s job performance as president, according to two recent polls finding all but the most entrenched Democrats souring on the embattled incumbent.
On Monday, The New York Times and Siena College released a poll finding the president’s job approval at just 33%, with more than two-thirds of independents disapproving. “Among fellow Democrats, his approval rating stands at 70 percent, a relatively low figure for a president, especially heading into the 2022 midterms when Mr. Biden needs to rally Democrats to the polls to maintain control of Congress,” the Times noted.
Accordingly, 64% of Democrats said they would prefer a different presidential nominee in 2024, a sentiment shared by every demographic group, including 94% of Democrats below age 30.
Civiqs’ daily tracking poll has the president in similarly dire straits, with only 30% job approval. Majorities of both sexes and every age, educational, and demographic group except blacks disapprove as well, and even with black Americans, a longtime reliable Democrat voting bloc, Biden’s support is down to 56%. Just 19% of independents are satisfied with Biden’s performance, and only 63% of his own party.
“Out of morbid curiosity, I skimmed hundreds of [former President Donald] Trump polls to see how many times over the course of four years he touched 33 percent among registered voters (He once hit 32% in a poll of all adults),” anti-Trump blogger “Allahpundit” wrote at Hot Air. “Answer: Just three, and one of those was conducted immediately after January 6. Biden’s approval is as low right now as Trump’s was in his worst hour.”
Biden has presided over (and is responsible for, according to his critics) a range of scandals, crises, and problems that have negatively impacted Americans’ daily lives and have Democrats bracing for a disastrous round of midterm elections in November, including a border crisis, high gas prices, and inflation, as well as his controversial stances on issues such abortion-on-demand and gender transitions for minors, and foreign catastrophes such as Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
On top of that, the 79-year-old Biden continues to face questions about his physical and mental fitness for the presidency. Biden has been famously gaffe-prone throughout his decades in politics, but in recent years his increasing frequency of odd and incoherent statements, as well as moments in which he has appeared lost and confused, have sparked a marked increase in concern from friends and foes alike.
During the 2020 campaign, Biden pledged only to serve one term “if anything changed in my health” to render him mentally incapable of the job. The White House now says Biden plans to run for re-election in 2024, but many aren’t so sure.
Over the weekend, The New York Times reported that, while past and present “senior officials and advisers” claim Biden “remained intellectually engaged,” many publicly and privately acknowledge a different picture.
“Although White House officials insist they make no special accommodations the way Reagan’s team did, privately they try to guard Mr. Biden’s weekends in Delaware as much as possible,” the Times reports. “He is generally a five- or five-and-a-half-day-a-week president, although he is called at any hour regardless of the day as needed. He stays out of public view at night and has taken part in fewer than half as many news conferences or interviews as recent predecessors.”
“Mr. Biden’s public appearances have fueled that perception. His speeches can be flat and listless. He sometimes loses his train of thought, has trouble summoning names or appears momentarily confused,” the report adds. “More than once, he has promoted Vice President Kamala Harris, calling her ‘President Harris.’ Mr. Biden, who overcame a childhood stutter, stumbles over words like ‘kleptocracy.’ He has said Iranian when he meant Ukrainian and several times called Senator Mark Warner, Democrat of Virginia, ‘John,’’ confusing him with the late Republican senator of that name from Virginia.”
For a left-wing newspaper of the Times’ stature to speak so frankly about a topic the mainstream media once worked to deny or downplay may be a sign of Democrats’ and left-wing activists’ dissatisfaction with Biden, and desire to replace him with someone else as the next Democrat presidential nominee.