AP Photo/Evan Vucci
It's hard for this veteran presidential politics junkie to think of a more catastrophic collapse of an incumbent president in modern history than Joe Biden. Sure, Richard Nixon comes to the minds of some, but he was brought down by a single issue (the Watergate scandal).
By contrast, Biden's precipitous fall has been the result of multiple crises across the board, most if not all of them intentionally created by Joe himself. Who does that? Other than Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., the woefully inept marionette under the complete control of far-left puppeteers, I mean.
This brings us to the latest New York Times/Sienna College Poll of 2024 battleground states.
While it's not new news that former President Donald Trump continues to hold a commanding lead over Biden in poll after poll, what is a bit of a shock in this poll is the downward spiral of the multiracial and multigenerational coalition that elected Biden in 2020.
Per the polling data, while Trump leads Biden in five of the six most important battleground states — all of which Biden carried in 2020 — just one year out from the election, Biden continues to suffer from growing serious doubts about everything from his age to his mishandling of the economy to the never-ending border crisis to now, his potentially ominous handling of the Israel-Hamas War.
The Times/Sienna Poll shows Biden losing to Trump by margins of three to 10 percentage points among registered voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Biden leads in only Wisconsin — and by just two points, at that.
Here's more (emphasis, mine):
Discontent pulsates throughout the Times/Siena poll, with a majority of voters saying Mr. Biden’s policies have personally hurt them. The survey also reveals the extent to which the multiracial and multigenerational coalition that elected Mr. Biden is fraying.
Demographic groups that backed Mr. Biden by landslide margins in 2020 are now far more closely contested, as two-thirds of the electorate sees the country moving in the wrong direction.
Voters under 30 favor Mr. Biden by only a single percentage point, his lead among Hispanic voters is down to single digits and his advantage in urban areas is half of Mr. Trump’s edge in rural regions.
And while women still favored Mr. Biden, men preferred Mr. Trump by twice as large a margin, reversing the gender advantage that had fueled so many Democratic gains in recent years.
Add it all together, and Mr. Trump leads by 10 points in Nevada, six in Georgia, five in Arizona, five in Michigan, and four in Pennsylvania. Mr. Biden held a 2-point edge in Wisconsin.
Spencer Weiss, a 53-year-old electrical substation specialist in Pennsylvania who supported Biden in 2020 but is now backing Trump, said:
The world is falling apart under Biden. I would much rather see somebody that I feel can be a positive role model leader for the country. ... I think Trump has his wits about him.
While one might wonder how a voter could back Biden in 2020 and switch to Trump in 2024 — or vice versa — the survey nailed it:
Another ominous sign for Democrats is that Mr. Biden’s policies had hurt them personally, while they credited Mr. Trump’s policies for helping them. The results were mirror opposites: Voters gave Mr. Trump a 17-point advantage for having helped them and Mr. Biden an 18-point disadvantage for having hurt them.
Concerns About Biden's Age and Mental Acuity
Anyone — I mean anyone — including members of his own administration who have watched Biden get lost on a stage, lose battle after battle with his teleprompter, forget the names of foreign leaders, members of his own cabinet, and others, knows damn well that the octogenarian president continues to on a downward slide.
According to the survey:
For Mr. Biden, who turns 81 later this month, being the oldest president in American history stands out as a glaring liability.
An overwhelming 71 percent said he was “too old” to be an effective president — an opinion shared across every demographic and geographic group in the poll, including a remarkable 54 percent of Mr. Biden’s own supporters.
In contrast, only 19 percent of supporters of Mr. Trump, who is 77, viewed him as too old, and 39 percent of the electorate overall.
62 percent also said Mr. Biden does not have the “mental sharpness” to be effective — are just the start of a sweeping set of Biden weaknesses in the survey results.
Translation: It's time to stick a fork in Joe.
The Bottom Line
While none of the above is news to the objective among us, what is important is the impact it now has on voters who backed Biden in 2020 — and it's only going to get worse as the 46th president of the United States continues to slip.
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RELATED ARTICLE
The 'Bidenomics' Honeymoon Is Officially Over
By Bonchie | RedState.com
AP Photo/Evan Vucci
I regret to inform you that "Bidenomics" isn't going very well. Hiring slowed to a crawl in October while the prior months were revised downward. That news was accompanied by already incredibly high interest rates and a stagnant stock market. To the extent that people are staying afloat financially, there's no ladder to climb anymore. Building wealth is a pipedream for most of the middle class.
Of course, this was foreseeable. "Bidenomics" was always one of the worst White House messaging campaigns in modern history. Did the president himself come up with the idea? Or was it the brainchild of his comms department run by Karine Jean-Pierre? I don't know, but sticking the president's name on this Jimmy Carter-esque dumpster fire was moronic from a strategic standpoint.
Sure enough, the honeymoon is over. Everyone is turning on "Bidenomics."
No one seems to like “Bidenomics,” the eponymous shorthand for Joe Biden’s economic policies — not voters, not Democratic officials, not even, at times, the president himself.
It’s a term that mystifies Americans and confounds even its namesake. “I don’t know what the hell that is,” Biden said in a speech in Philadelphia earlier this year.
In a September focus group with Pennsylvania swing voters, one participant told the research firm Engagious that the concept was a “jumbled mess,” adding that “it’s really hard to explain.”
Who could have possibly predicted this, you might ask? The answer is anyone with a brain and the ability to look at the situation at the time. The economy was not good when "Bidenomics" was coined, which made its embrace a completely head-scratching move from the get-go.
Americans want affordable food and the ability to buy property and live the American dream. They don't care about fluffed-up jobs report propped up by overblown government spending. I've said it a dozen times if I've said it once: You can not lie to people about what's in their bank account.
Retirements are down, prices are up, and wages are lagging. That's what "Bidenomics" is. There's nothing positive about it. Rather, it's been a catch-all term for just how horrible the current economic malaise is. Worse is that there's no end in sight. How long will it take for interest rates to recede to affordable levels? Five years? A decade? And don't hold your breath on prices coming down. At best, we'll continue to see a slowing in their growth.
Again, that's "Bidenomics," and I think we've all had our fill of it.
