According to The Hill, which was given exclusive access to the results of a Harvard CAPS–Harris Poll survey, 71% of Americans don’t want Biden to seek a second term in office in the 2024 presidential election.
Respondents expressed various reasons for objecting to a second Biden administration, with 45% saying it’s because he’s a bad president, while 33% said the 79-year-old leader is too old, and about 25% saying they simply want to see a change. The poll surveyed 1,308 registered voters on June 28 and 29.
However, the same poll also found that 61% of Americans don’t want to see former US President Donald Trump, Biden’s 76-year-old predecessor, seek a return to the White House in 2024, either. Among those who objected, 36% said Trump was too erratic, while 33% said he would divide the country and 30% specifically said it was because they held him responsible for the January 6, 2021, insurrection by Trump’s supporters at the US Capitol, which aimed to overturn Biden’s election victory on unfounded accusations of fraud.
An agglomeration of recent polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight has Biden’s approval rating at 39.2% and his disapproval rating at 55.9% on July 1. While his approval rating has only slightly declined in the last month, those who disapprove of his administration have increased from 53.6% in the first week of June.
The same service shows Trump’s dis/approval ratings holding roughly the same, with 54.9% holding an unfavorable view of the real estate mogul and 41.9% holding a favorable view of him. Interestingly, those numbers are almost identical to where he stood on July 1, 2018, a year-and-a-half into his presidential term and six months before the midterm elections.
In those elections, the GOP suffered a major defeat, losing 40 seats and the majority in the House of Representatives to the Democrats.
Still, Biden has largely treated Trump as his presumptive rival in 2024, casting Republicans as “Ultra MAGA” and warning of the direction the country could go under his influence. A slew of victories in GOP primary races by candidates backed by Trump hints at both his lasting control over the party, but also dissidence within the party as other figures, such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, back competing candidates.
It remains to be seen how many of the most salient political issues, including rising inflation, mass shootings, and the Supreme Court’s recent overturning of federal abortion rights, will affect the midterms. Democrats have heavily banked on the crises turning out voters in their favor in November, arguing that they can only overcome Republican intransigence by reaching a critical mass of Democratic lawmakers.