By Jim Ellis — Friday, Jan. 5, 2024
President
President Joe Biden / Photo by Gage Skidmore
In a special interview series that consultant Bruce Mellman conducts, veteran pollster Bill McInturff, just before breaking for the holidays, notes that he sees 19 individual polling figures never before reached. Today, we will review some of the most telling of these research trends and illustrate just who has much work ahead of them to improve their political standing.
As McInturff points out, President Joe Biden is entering his re-election year as the most unpopular chief executive in modern American political history. In fact, in examining the Gallup organization tracking figures for every president since Eisenhower, only three presidents have been saddled with an upside-down job approval rating as their respective pre-election year was ending.
President Barack Obama, being eight percentage points underwater, had the worst rating at this commensurate point until Biden. President Donald Trump was second worst at minus-6. As we know, President Obama rebounded to win re-election while President Trump did not. Niether, however, were as far down as President Biden, who now finds himself 22 percentage points below the break-even mark.
The late September NBC News poll that McInturff’s Public Opinion Strategies firm conducted also finds bad news for Republicans. On the abortion issue prior to the Dobbs decision even being leaked, those individuals who self-identified as abortion issue voters actually favored the GOP. In January of 2020, those voters favored a Republican controlled Congress with a 57-37 percent margin. After the Dobbs briefing was leaked, the numbers flipped to a 63-34 percent spread favoring a Democratic controlled Congress.
As has been documented through other polling, President Biden has a major problem on the Israel-Hamas issue. While he is scoring strong points among the aged 65-plus segment (54-44 percent approve of his handling of the issue), we see a different demographic segment turning against Biden. The POS data brings home just how stark a difference exists between young and old in relation to the Israel-Hamas question.
Among the 18-34 aged segment, a plurality of 46 percent are sympathetic with Hamas’ position as compared to just 27 percent who favor Israel. Within this younger voter sample cell, President Biden takes a major hit. Only 24 percent approve of his job performance regarding Israel-Hamas and a whopping 67 percent disapprove.
A decline in interest toward the upcoming election is also being detected, and the groups with the largest downturns are ones that President Biden can ill afford to lose. When comparing data averaged from four selected years (2007, 2012, 2015, and 2019) with results from the September 2023 national NBC News poll, we see that the groups losing the most interest in the upcoming 2024 election are Latinos (minus-15 points below their four-year average), blacks (minus-14), and young voters (minus-11).
Republicans see another problem that has been present for the better part of last year. That is, while the party is viewed to be holding its best position on handling key issues, which translates into a major improvement over the long-term course of time, the positive GOP ratings are not commensurately transforming into committed votes.
In 1996, Democrats had a two-point edge in dealing with crime. In the September NBC News poll, the Republican advantage was 26 percentage points. On the economy, Democrats had an 18 percentage point positive rating over Republicans on the heels of President Obama’s first election. This past September, the Republican economic advantage margin was 21 points.
In 2007, Democrats were the preferred party to handle immigration by 10 percentage points. The latest data: Republicans plus-18. The Democratic staple issue of being the preferred party of the middle class reached a high spread of 29 points in 2007. The latest data shows that mark down dropping almost to even with the Republicans at plus-2. Yet, despite these good results, the Republican presidential candidates barely lead President Biden, and the generic vote question still slightly favors Democrats.
Perhaps the most stunning recent data point is the Biden Campaign spending a record $47.8 million on off-year advertising, yet the latest ballot test trends are moving toward their opponent. Nationally, before the advertising blitz began, President Biden held a one point national lead over former President Trump, 44-43 percent. After the ad campaign, Trump saw a net gain of four percentage points.
The results were similar in the battleground states. In Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania, Trump saw a net gain of between four and seven percentage points in each of the head-to-head battleground ballot tests with President Biden. Therefore, this tells us that the Biden Campaign message is actually working in reverse. The good news for the pdresident’s team is they have time to rectify the situation.
A big reason for the ad campaign not working is how people view both the Biden and Trump Administration from their own perspective. The NBC data finds respondents saying the Trump policies helped them personally by a ratio of 49:37 percent. Conversely, by a huge 23:53 percent ratio, the same sampling universe believes the Biden policies have been detrimental in their lives.
In conclusion, both parties have disconnects with the electorate. The next year will tell us which of the two parties can do a better job in narrowing their troublesome credibility gaps.
