A majority of Democrats now think one term is plenty for President Joe Biden, despite his insistence that he plans to seek reelection in 2024. That’s according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that shows just 37% of Democrats say they want him to seek a second term, down from 52% in the weeks before last year’s midterm elections. While Biden has trumpeted his legislative victories and ability to govern, the poll suggests relatively few U.S. adults give him high marks on either. Follow-up interviews with poll respondents suggest that many believe the 80-year-old’s age is a liability, with people focused on his coughing, his gait, his gaffes and the possibility that the world’s most stressful job would be better suited for someone younger.
“I, honestly, think that he would be too old,” said Sarah Overman, 37, a Democrat who works in education in Raleigh, North Carolina. “We could use someone younger in the office.” As the president gives his State of the Union address Tuesday, he has a chance to confront fundamental doubts about his competence to govern. Biden has previously leaned heavily on his track record to say that he’s more than up to the task. When asked if he can handle the office’s responsibilities at his age, the president has often responded as if he’s accepting a dare: “Watch me.”
Overall, 41% approve of how Biden is handling his job as president, the poll shows, similar to ratings at the end of last year. A majority of Democrats still approve of the job Biden is doing as president, yet their appetite for a reelection campaign has slipped despite his electoral track record. Only 22% of U.S. adults overall say he should run again, down from 29% who said so before last year’s midterm elections. The decline among Democrats saying Biden should run again for president appears concentrated among younger people. Among Democrats age 45 and over, 49% say Biden should run for reelection, nearly as many as the 58% who said that in October. But among those under age 45, 23% now say he should run for reelection, after 45% said that before the midterms.
https://apnews.com/article/ap-norc-poll ... e2b1db03f6The poll of 1,068 adults was conducted Jan. 26-30 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
Another poll from the Washington Post/ABC News:
Two years into a presidency that the White House casts as the most effective in modern history, President Biden is set to deliver a State of the Union address Tuesday to a skeptical country with a majority of Americans saying they do not believe he has achieved much since taking office, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.
The poll finds that 62 percent of Americans think Biden has accomplished “not very much” or “little or nothing” during his presidency, while 36 percent say he has accomplished “a great deal” or “a good amount.” On many of Biden’s signature initiatives — from improving the country’s infrastructure to making electric vehicles more affordable to creating jobs — majorities of Americans say they do not believe he has made progress, the poll finds.
Overall, the poll’s findings are not reassuring for either party. On the looming fight over the debt limit, most Americans are closer to Biden’s position than the GOP’s, and most dismiss Republican plans to investigate the government’s “weaponization” as political. And Americans have little confidence in either Biden or House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) to make the right decisions for the country’s future. Just under 2 in 10 Americans have “a great deal” or “a good amount” of confidence in the speaker to do so; 71 percent have “just some” or no confidence at all. A similarly high 72 percent say they lack such confidence in congressional Republicans, and 68 percent say the same about Biden and 70 percent about congressional Democrats.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... en-impact/The president received more good news Friday, with the release of new data showing that the labor market added 517,000 jobs and the unemployment rate dropped to 3.4 percent, the lowest level since May 1969. “I’m happy to report that the state of the union and the state of our economy is strong,” Biden said after the numbers were released. Yet a growing number of Americans say their own financial circumstances are worsening on Biden’s watch. Roughly 4 in 10 Americans (41 percent) say they are not as well-off financially since Biden became president, up from 35 percent one year ago and the highest percentage to report such a sentiment under any president in Post-ABC polls since measurement began in 1986.
It's apparent Biden is running for a second term at 80 years of age. Reports are that Jill Biden will be playing a bigger part in the campaign, not a role people feel she's comfortable with.