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President Biden says he will stand for re-election in 2024. But some Americans don’t believe him — and many don’t want him throwing his hat in the ring for a second term either.
Already before Biden was elected in 2020, There was speculation whether he is seeking a second term. And a Wall Street Journal poll carried out from March 2nd to 7th found that more than half (52 percent) of registered voters don’t believe he will run again in 2024, while only 29 percent believe he will run again. (Nineteen percent weren’t sure.) A second Biden run isn’t that popular, either. Corresponding an AP/NORC survey Conducted Jan. 13-18, 70 percent of Americans do not want the presidential nomination in 2024. Even Democrats are lukewarm about the idea. A CNN/SSRS poll conducted from Jan. 10-Feb. 6 found that just over half (51 percent) of registered Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents wanted a candidate other than Biden.
Part of this may simply reflect that Americans are not enthusiastic about a repeat of the 2020 election. In this AP/NORC poll, a similar proportion (72 percent) said they also didn’t want former President Donald Trump to run for re-election. It’s actually surprisingly common for voters to say they don’t want first-term presidents seeking a second term — only to then turn around and support them when they run for re-election. However, the proportion of Americans who do not want Biden to seek a second term is unusually high compared to previous first-term presidents. It is also unusual for voters to believe that an incumbent president will not run for re-election.
There’s no question that concerns about Biden’s age could play a role. He is already the oldest president in US history and will be 81 years old in 2024. But some voters might also think it’s time for Biden, posing as “Bridge”. to a new generation of political leaders to step down in favor of a candidate who is not an old white man.
Ultimately, however, it is extremely rare for a first-term president to choose not to run for re-election. Only six presidents have decided to retire after a full term. Four of those presidents actually stayed in the White House for more than four years because they succeeded former presidents who had died in office. The last president to deliberately resign after four years in office was Rutherford B. Hayes in 1880.
This explains why voters (rightly) assume that presidents will run for a second term. At the end of 1982, an interim year, as President Ronald Reagan’s party lost seats in CongressDespite this, a majority of Americans believed he would run again in 1984. Similarly, a December 1994 Newsweek poll found that 85 percent of Americans thought President Bill Clinton would run again in 1996, even though his party was suffering massive losses in this year’s midterm elections. A Quinnipiac poll conducted in December 2018 also found that most Americans (81 percent) believed Trump would run again in 2020.
Whether voters actually are happy however, about a first-term president running for re-election is an open question. A Harris poll conducted in August 1982 found that a majority (56 percent) of Americans believed that Reagan should not run again. In December 1994, slightly more Americans thought Clinton should not run for re-election (47 percent) than he thought (44 percent). But it’s not always that Americans don’t want a first-term president to run again. An October 2010 Pew Research Center poll found that more Americans said President Barack Obama should run for re-election (47 percent) than not (42 percent).
So, in a way, Biden’s case is not the unusual – or even so alarming for his followers. It’s true that the percentage of Americans who don’t want him to run for re-election is much higher than it was for Reagan, Clinton or Obama. But dissatisfaction with a president-elect doesn’t tell us much about their ultimate electoral chances as they seek a second term. Despite voter concerns two years earlier Reagan won by a wide margin in 1984just like … did Clinton in 1996.
However, there are some reasons to believe that Americans might view the prospect of a second Biden run differently than previous presidents. In that CNN/SSRS poll earlier this year, 31 percent of Democrats who wanted the party to nominate someone else said they just didn’t want Biden re-elected, 35 percent thought he couldn’t win against Republicans, and 19 percent said they thought he was too old. This level of skepticism from voters in a president’s own party is quite unusual — consider that an April 2018 Suffolk poll of Republican primary voters found that most (70 percent) wanted Trump to run again. In other words, the fact that so many Democrats have concerns about Biden may worry him.
Biden’s age was also an issue for voters hovered in the background for years. If elected to a second term, he will be 86 when he leaves office – nearly a decade older than Reagan, who was previously America’s oldest president at 77. found a poll by the Pew Research Center that 31 percent of registered voters who supported Biden were concerned about his age and health. There are also indications that Americans in general have reservations about voting for a candidate at an advanced age. A YouGov poll conducted in Januaryfound, for example, that 58 percent of Americans support an upper age limit for elected officials.
But it’s also possible that something else is afoot: some Americans might want Biden to step down in favor of someone else. Perhaps they would prefer someone who better represents the party’s growing diversity, or someone believed to have a better chance of defeating the Republican nominee in 2024. Finally, Biden’s approval ratings are low and its support has eroded under young voters, Latinos and black voters particularly. Those voters may be unhappy with Biden’s inability to deliver on the sweeping promises he made early in his tenure. Or they’re just afraid he can’t win.
Other polling bites
- Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the economy according to a new report from Gallup. In May, the Gallup Index of Business Confidence — a metric that summarizes how Americans feel about the economy on a scale from 100 to -100 — came in at -45, up from -39 in the previous two months. It’s probably the lowest American confidence in the economy since the Great Recession.
- Just in time for Pride Month, a Gallup poll conducted May 2-22, found that 71 percent of Americans support legal same-sex marriage. That’s not a noticeable change from last year, when 70 percent of Americans said they support same-sex marriage, but Gallup’s trend is a reminder of how much public opinion on the issue has changed over the past two decades. In 2004, less than half (42 percent) of Americans supported same-sex marriage. And ten years ago, in 2012, support was exactly 50 percent.
- Following the leak of a Supreme Court ruling that five judges might be willing to Roe v. to fall calf, a Wall Street Journal/NORC poll conducted from May 9-17 revealed that the Americans remain firmly opposed to the move. Two-thirds (68 percent) of Americans said they would not like to see the court overturn Roe, which established constitutional abortion rights in 1973, while 30 percent said they would like to see that outcome. The poll also found that the proportion of Americans who say a woman should be able to have an abortion for any reason (57 percent) is the highest since NORC began asking the question in 1977.
- Should children have to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in schools every day? A YouGov poll The poll, conducted on June 2, found a majority (52 percent) of Americans think so, while 33 percent say they shouldn’t be required to take the pledge of allegiance and 15 percent said they weren’t sure.
Biden approval
According to FiveThirtyEight’s presidential approval tracker, 40.8 percent of Americans approve of the work Biden is doing as president, while 53.9 percent oppose it (a net approval rating of -13.1 points). At this time last week, 40.5 percent agreed and 54.3 percent disagreed (net agreement score -13.8 points). A month ago, Biden had an approval rating of 42.0 percent and a disapproval rating of 52.3 percent, for a net approval rating of -10.3 points.
General ballot
In our average of polls for the general congressional vote, Republicans currently lead by 2.2 percentage points (45.0 percent vs. 42.8 percent). A week ago, Republicans led Democrats by 2.2 points (45.0 percent to 42.8 percent). At this point last month, voters preferred Republicans by 2.4 points (45.2 percent to 42.8 percent).
