Young people really, really don’t want Biden to run in 2024
A new poll shows a jaw-dropping 94 percent of voters aged 18 to 29 want a different Democratic nominee.
I’m neither a professional pollster, nor a data analyst, but I feel fairly confident saying that President Joe Biden has a pretty big problem when it comes to, uh, well, everything. At least that’s what a new New York Times/Siena College poll suggests, placing his overall approval rating in the low 30s, and his overall prospects for reelection somewhere south of your average septic tank.
Conducted last week, the poll sampled 849 respondents who overwhelmingly pointed to significant dissatisfaction with the Biden administration, and in particular, Biden himself, who garnered just 33% overall approval — numbers that look even worse when sliced along party lines. Only 26% of Democratic voters want Biden as the party’s nominee for president in 2024, an abysmal showing rendered even more dire the younger the respondent got. Overall, an astonishing 94% of voters between the ages of 18-29 want Democrats to nominate someone else for the next presidential election. That’s not a hole easily escaped for a man who, just last week, took aim at his party’s left — and largely younger — flank as being “out of step with the mainstream” of the Democratic party for their anger at his lackluster response to the Conservative repeal of federal abortion rights.
Biden, who would be 86 at the end of a potential second term, is already the oldest president in American history, with his age being the number one reason voters would prefer a different Democratic nominee. Crucially, however, among the same group of younger voters who near-unanimously want someone else to run in 2024, his age is less a concern than general dissatisfaction with his job performance, and frustration with his centrist policies. In fact, as the poll suggests, his advanced age is more of a problem for voters the older they themselves get.
Having said all that, Monday’s poll isn’t all bad news for Biden — at least, not if Donald Trump plans to run for president again (which, by all indications, is what he’s going to do). If 2024 becomes a Biden/Trump rematch, the overwhelming majority of Democrats would nevertheless line up behind Biden to give him a slim win of 44 to Trump’s 41% of the vote. So, that’s something to look forward to, I guess.
