Majority of Democrats Don’t Want Biden to Run in 2024
Sixty-four percent of Democrats do not want President Joe Biden to run for re-election in 2024, a new New York Times/Siena College poll found.
The national perception of Biden continues to fall as concerns about the economy and inflation rise. The poll learned that 75 percent of registered voters feel that the United States is headed in the wrong direction and only 33 percent approve of Biden.
Thirty-three percent of respondents attributed Biden's age as the primary reason for wanting someone other than Biden to be the Democratic nominee. Biden turns 81 in 2024.
Democrats never had loyalty to Biden. It was the Democrats and the media -- one and the same -- who first pushed that Biden had cognitive declines as they were trying to prop up Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, and Elizabeth Warren at different times in 2019 and 2020.
The party settled on Biden only after realizing it was between him and Sen. Bernie Sanders, who they feared would struggle in a general election against Donald Trump.
So, turning on Biden was foreseeable from the start. And with his struggles -- from the economy to the border to Afghanistan to leadership to speaking -- Democratic voters see Biden as a feeble option come 2024.
For example:
But it's not as if the party has some great backup plan waiting to jump off the bench and shoot the shots.
Who else is there? The other options are just as bad as Biden.
Harris is a non-starter. Only her staff likes her less than voters. There's no sign that Michelle Obama is going to run in 2024. Sorry, Joe Rogan. Buttigieg doesn't have any momentum -- look at the airports.
Warren? Cory Booker? Stop.
That brings us to California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Newsom appears to be gearing up for a run and CNN is all for it. Newsom ran an ad over the July 4 holiday attacking GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is gaining momentum as a 2024 candidate.
It's hard to look at Newsom's handling of COVID in California and come away with confidence that this guy can lead a country. A recent OutKick story about the 2024 betting market agreed, showing the odds stacked against Newsom in a hypothetical primary.
The same New York Times/Siena College poll does, however, say Biden leads Trump in a hypothetical 2024 matchup, 44 percent to 41 percent. But the betting market disagrees with that finding, listing Trump ahead of Biden.
Nearly two years out, DeSantis is the 7/2 favorite, leading Donald Trump who sits at 4/1. Biden comes in third, at 6/1.
Biden fell from first to third in this category in less than a year. This fall is consistent with Democrats looking past him for 2024. A similar CNN poll in February found that 51 percent of Democrats did not want Biden to run for re-election. That number is now above 60 percent.