Though the 2024 election is months away, a look back at where Democratic candidates stood in the December ahead of an election year spells more bad news for President Joe Biden.
Former President Donald Trump remains the front runner and likely Republican presidential nominee for the 2024 election even as other candidates, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley, continue to spar for the position. In several national and swing state hypothetical matchups, Biden trails Trump who, as of Dec. 23, had a 2.3-point lead over the 81-year-old incumbent, according to a Real Clear Politics polling average.
In the last few elections, Democratic candidates were in better positions in the polls but, whether they ultimately won or lost, none had to overcome the same deficit Biden now faces ahead of 2024.
Ahead of the 2020 election, on Dec. 24, 2019, Biden led Trump by 4.5 points, according to Real Clear Politics. The former vice president ultimately emerged victorious over Trump, securing 306 electoral college votes to Trump’s 232, as well as more than 81 million popular votes. Across the swing states, however, the results were much tighter, with Biden ultimately being lifted to victory by a margin of just tens of thousands of votes.
US President Joe Biden leaves after speaking about the September jobs report from the South Court Auditorium at the White House in Washington, DC, on October 8, 2021. (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was in a much better place than Biden going into the 2016 election. On Dec. 24, 2015, Clinton had a whopping 6.1-point lead over Trump, Real Clear Politics shows. Clinton ended up winning the popular vote in the 2016 election, 48.2 percent to 46.1 percent, but Trump would beat Hillary 304 to 227 in the electoral college to win the election.
Though some point to former President Barack Obama’s poor polling ahead of his reelection in 2012, even Obama was polling better in a head-to-head matchup with his hypothetical challenger on Dec. 24, 2011 than Biden is now. Obama had a 2.5-point lead over Republican Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, Real Clear Politics shows.
In addition to trailing Trump in several hypothetical matchups, Biden isn’t polling well with the American people when it comes to his age, the border and the economy. The president’s approval rating has plummeted since taking office, falling to 34 percent, the lowest it’s been throughout the Biden administration, according to a Monmouth University poll. (RELATED: ‘Every Angle… Hurts Joe Biden’: Hunter’s Latest Stunt May Have Thrown His Dad Into A Messy Tangle, Strategists Say)
That same poll showed 69 percent of Americans disapprove of how Biden has handled the migration crisis. Just 31 percent of Americans say the president is paying enough attention to the issues they find to be priorities, the Monmouth University poll showed.
Today is Joe Biden’s 81st birthdaypic.twitter.com/IfPgIiJFmE
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) November 20, 2023
When it comes to the president’s economic policies, commonly referred to as “Bidenomics,” the American people aren’t sold. Just twelve percent of Americans say their economic situation is improving while forty-four percent of Americans say they are struggling financially, according to the Monmouth University poll.
A majority of Americans, 77 percent, believed in September that Biden is too old to govern effectively.
Despite what the numbers show, Biden and his team reportedly plan to keep their same strategy ahead of the 2024 election, people close to Biden told the New York Times (NYT). The president’s reelection campaign is reportedly going to continue their messaging of directly comparing the boss’s policies to those of Republicans, the sources told the NYT. (RELATED: Biden Campaign Silent As Trump World Openly Lobs Debate Challenge)
The Biden campaign, as well as allies of the president, are also hoping to lean into negative coverage of the former president to help salvage Biden’s plummeting poll numbers, the NYT reported.
“Not having the day-to-day chaos of Donald Trump in people’s faces certainly has an impact on how people are measuring the urgency of the danger of another Trump administration,” Adrianne Shropshire, the executive director of BlackPAC, an African American political organizing group, previously told The NYT. “It is important to remind people of what a total and absolute disaster Trump was.”
As the 2024 election approaches, Democrats are reportedly urging the Biden campaign to focus on issues such as abortion access, but Biden himself reportedly wants to keep his campaign messaging focused on the “threat to democracy” theme, those close to the president told Politico. The president and his campaign have ramped up their attacks of Trump, with Biden even revealing the reason he decided to run for reelection.
While attending a December campaign fundraiser in Boston, the president said he may not have entered the 2024 race if Trump wasn’t running.
“If Trump wasn’t running, I’m not sure I’d be running. But we cannot let him win,” Biden said.