State of the Union addresses are supposed to be a high mark of sorts for a president. The president has the nation’s attention as he describes his accomplishments and agenda going forward. And while President Joe Biden will certainly do those things Tuesday night, he faces a tall task.
Biden’s poll numbers (both in terms of his approval rating and his 2024 prospects) continue to be lackluster heading into the beginning of the 2024 primary season.
Three polls were released in the past five days regarding how Americans view the job Biden is doing as president, and they all say basically the same negative thing. Polls from ABC News/Washington Post, AP-NORC and CBS News/YouGov all have Biden’s approval rating in the low to mid 40s and his disapproval rating in the mid to high 50s.
The best polls that Biden has received (and that meet CNN’s standards for publication) over the past few weeks still have Biden’s disapproval rating above his approval rating.
Indeed, Biden has sported a negative net approval (approve - disapprove) rating since the end of the summer of 2021, just months into his administration. That’s nearly a year and a half in which more Americans have disliked than liked the job Biden has been doing as president.
The only other president who had a negative net approval rating for that long during this early part of his presidency was Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump.
The good piece of news for Biden is that his approval rating does not seem to be falling. Biden’s approval rating seemed to be on a steady upclimb for much of December and into January. Then it dropped after classified documents were found at his Wilmington, Delaware, home and a Washington, DC, office he used after serving as vice president. It now looks to be up slightly, again.
Further, Biden’s base seems to be sticking with him. Almost every single poll has his approval rating with Democrats in the 80s.
No president has ever faced any real challenge for renomination when his approval rating among his own party was above 75%.
But there are other signs ahead of 2024 that are far from encouraging. Even as most Democrats like the job Biden is doing as president, they’re not ready to commit to him being the party’s standard bearer in the coming presidential cycle.
Most polls find that less than 50% of Democrats want Biden to be renominated. He does lead nationally in the limited polls that test him against other Democrats, though he is under 50%. The last president to be in such a position was Jimmy Carter in 1979, which ultimately led to him facing a tough challenge for the Democratic nomination from Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy.
The big thing that makes Biden the likely Democratic nominee in 2024, should he run, is that no one of any political gravitas seems likely to run against him.
Biden will face opponents in the general election, however, and right now, Biden’s not doing awesome in polls of those potential matchups.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll put Trump at 48% to Biden’s 45%. That result is within the margin of error, but it’s notable given the polling during the 2020 campaign.
There was not a single poll in 2019 or 2020 that met CNN’s standards for publication in which more respondents said they preferred Trump over Biden to be the next president. That ABC News/Washington Post poll is one of a number that already put Trump in a better position than Biden in the 2024 general election.
The other candidate most likely to face Biden in the 2024 general election is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. A Marquette University Law School poll from last month had DeSantis ahead of Biden by seven points.
Biden has his work cut out for him.
The big question going forward is whether anything can change those numbers for Biden.
A single speech, like the one Biden will give tonight, almost certainly won’t have that effect.
What could change things for Biden is the state of the economy.
We have, after all, had lower inflation over the past couple months after historically high inflation throughout much of 2022. Additionally, gas prices aren’t anywhere near as high as they had been during the middle of last year.
The fact that Americans are spending less on gas and that the cost of living isn’t climbing might be part of why Biden’s approval rating is higher than it was a few months ago. If that continues, maybe the president will break out of his slump.
The only thing that we can stay for sure is that it’s still very early in the 2024 cycle. There is a lot of time for things to change for the better – or worse – for Biden.
