Biden’s Age, Economic Worries Endanger Re-Election in 2024, WSJ Poll Finds Nearly three-quarters of voters say the president is too old to run again By Sabrina Siddiqui & Catherine Lucey
Voters overwhelmingly think President Biden is too old to run for re-election and give him low marks for handling the economy and other issues important to their vote, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll that offers a stark warning to the 80-year-old incumbent ahead of the 2024 contest.
The negative views of Biden’s age and performance in office help explain why only 39% of voters hold a favorable view of the president. In a separate question, some 42% said they approve of how he is handling his job, well below the 57% who disapprove.
And Biden is tied with former President Donald Trump in a potential rematch of the 2020 election, with each holding 46% support in a head-to-head test.
The Journal survey, while pointing to a large set of challenges Biden faces in persuading voters that he deserves re-election, also finds weaknesses in his likely opponent. Voters in the survey rated Trump as less honest and likable than Biden, and a majority viewed Trump’s actions after his 2020 election loss as an illegal effort to stop Congress from declaring Biden the proper winner.
“Voters are looking for change, and neither of the leading candidates is the change that they’re looking for,” said Democratic pollster Michael Bocian, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio.
Although the candidates are only three years apart, 73% of voters said they feel Biden is too old to seek a second term, compared with 47% of voters who said the same of the 77-year-old Trump. Two-thirds of Democrats said Biden was too old to run again.
By an 11-point margin, more voters see Trump rather than Biden as having a record of accomplishments as president—some 40% said Biden has such a record, while 51% said so of Trump. By an eight-point margin, more voters said Trump has a vision for the future. And by 10 points, more described Trump as mentally up to the presidency. Some 46% said that is true of Trump, compared with 36% who said so of Biden.
Biden is viewed more favorably than Trump on some personal characteristics. Some 48% of voters said Biden is likable, compared with 31% for Trump. Some 45% viewed Biden as honest, while 38% said so of Trump.
“If this race is about personality and temperament, then Biden has an advantage. If this race is about policies and performance, then Trump has the advantage,” said Fabrizio, who also polls for a super PAC supporting Trump’s candidacy.
The numbers come as Biden has spent months traveling the country promoting his economic record and legislative achievements, including major investments in infrastructure, clean energy and technology. The president has also touted job growth and higher wages under his watch, with data showing that the broader economy remains strong and inflation has cooled to its lowest rate in about two years. Unemployment remains near a 50-year low.
But 58% of voters say the economy has gotten worse over the past two years, whereas only 28% say it has gotten better, and nearly three in four say inflation is headed in the wrong direction. Those views were echoed in the survey by large majorities of independents, a group that helped deliver Biden’s victory over Trump in the 2020 presidential race. Voters were almost evenly split on the direction of the job market.
The WSJ Poll
“I think the economy might be doing good for some people but, for folks who are in the middle, we are kind of squeezed,” said Shivkumar Singh, an IT manager in Okemos, Mich., and father of three. “If your kids are going to college, it’s very expensive for us. And the younger kids who have just graduated, it’s very hard for them to get jobs.”
Singh, 53, is an independent who voted for Biden in 2020 because he didn’t like Trump’s personal demeanor. But he now has questions about Biden’s abilities and is undecided between the two men. He is considering whether to write in a candidate, as he did in 2016, when Trump faced off against Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Biden campaign aides note that it is very early in the race and that most voters aren’t yet plugged in to the general election. They say the public supports the federal investments in infrastructure, climate and the semiconductor industry that he championed.
“Wages are growing faster than inflation. This didn’t just happen. We made it happen,” Biden said Monday in a Labor Day rally before union members in Philadelphia, adding: “Unions built the middle class.”
The United Auto Workers has withheld its endorsement of Biden’s re-election bid, a departure for a union that has consistently backed Democratic candidates. In recent days the leader of the 400,000 member union has said it is prepared to strike if new contracts aren’t completed with automakers
,
and
before current ones expire on Sept. 14. Biden said Monday he wasn’t worried about that prospect.
Elizabeth Bankson, 56, a grade-school teacher from Winston-Salem, N.C., is a registered Democrat who voted for Biden in 2020. She said Biden has accomplished a lot, citing infrastructure spending and other issues, but said she wished there were another option in 2024.
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“It’s 100% because of his age. He’s done a great job. He’s good right now. But somebody at the age of 80 has a high risk of things going wrong physically and mentally,” she said.
She added that if the 2024 choice was between Biden and Trump, “I can’t say it strongly enough, absolutely Biden.”
Democrats plan to rally supporters behind issues such as abortion rights, which proved a key factor in the party outperforming expectations in the 2022 midterm elections. Abortion was the top priority among Democrats in the Journal poll, with 16% naming it as the issue most important to their 2024 vote, ahead of the economy and climate, which each stood at 12%.
The poll was conducted after Trump was indicted for a fourth time, with a grand jury in Atlanta last month charging him with allegedly operating a criminal enterprise that sought to overturn Biden’s electoral victory in Georgia. That followed indictments over allegedly illegal efforts to maintain power after losing the 2020 election, his handling of classified documents after leaving office and the payment of hush money to a porn star. Trump has pleaded not guilty to all charges.
Among registered voters, 37% said the indictments made them less likely to vote for Trump, compared with 24% who said it made them more likely to vote for the former president. Some 35% said the indictments made no difference to their vote.
The poll found a substantial difference in awareness among voters of the legal issues facing Trump and Hunter Biden, the president’s son, whose business dealings are under investigation by the Justice Department. Eighty-three percent of voters said they were paying attention to Trump’s legal issues, while 66% said the same of Hunter Biden.
Although no evidence has emerged to show that the elder Biden benefited from his son’s international commercial endeavors, nor that he wielded government authority to favor them, congressional Republicans say they are moving closer to pursuing an impeachment case against the president tied to those dealings.
A majority of voters, 52%, oppose impeaching Biden, with 41% in favor.
Derrick-Michael Williams, a 57-year-old investor based in Phoenix, said he is an independent who voted for Biden in 2020 to ensure Trump wasn’t re-elected. But this time, he is leaning toward supporting third-party candidate Cornel West, due in part to his frustration with Biden’s inability to deliver on his promise to overhaul policing in America.
“There’s no goddamn police reform out here. They’re still killing people,” said Williams, who is Black. “I voted for Biden because I knew he can heal, but he’s just not doing enough right now.”
The poll of 1,500 registered voters was conducted Aug. 24-30 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. Respondents were reached by cellphone, landline phone and by text with an invitation to take the survey online.
Write to Sabrina Siddiqui at sabrina.siddiqui@wsj.com and Catherine Lucey at catherine.lucey@wsj.com
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