It’s Only Going to Get Harder for Biden from Here
Even if he survives the current challenges to his candidacy, he still faces an uphill battle to November.
President Biden is in the fight of his political career, as he tries to quell an uprising of Democrats against his re-election bid following his disastrous debate performance two weeks ago and the subsequently messy clean-up operation. This week is likely to be one of the most important in that fight. By the end of it, there’s a good chance we’ll know whether the efforts to replace him on the ticket will succeed.
Though it’s unclear how all this will play out, Biden may very well stamp out the challenges to his candidacy and bring disaffected Democrats back to his corner. But even if he accomplishes this, the path forward remains rocky. Here are a few reasons why things aren’t likely to get any easier for him in the months ahead.
A dismal polling picture
Polling has long shown Biden struggling to retain even modest levels of support from the public—and on that front, history is not on his side. Consider:
His approval rating has been underwater since August of 2021 and has remained below 40 percent nearly every day since the beginning of last October, making him more unpopular at this point in his first term than all but two presidents in the modern polling era: George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter. And, well…
The head-to-head polls against Trump offer similarly bleak news. Biden has tied or trailed him in national polling since last October as well, and Trump leads Biden in the polling averages in all seven core swing states. While these data points are concerning in a vacuum, it’s even more alarming when juxtaposed against Biden’s advantages in 2020. That year, he was favored in enough states to get him to 270 electoral votes and ran ahead of Trump in the national polling by 8.4 points—and he still only narrowly won.
CNN analyst Harry Enten also pointed out last week that first-term presidents who trailed in the polls heading into their first debate and who then proceeded to lose that debate have all gone on to lose re-election.
For Biden to bounce back from this saga, he’ll have to find a way to make his candidacy more appealing to a majority of Americans over the final four months of the campaign, which he has struggled to accomplish since early in his first term. A polling rally at this late stage would not be unprecedented, but there’s a reason only one incumbent who trailed in the polls heading into his re-election has ever come back to win.
A resurgent Trump
Biden’s polling struggles come even as he has dramatically outspent Trump on the TV ads—and as Trump has spent months in courtrooms, rerouted precious campaign resources to his legal defense fund, and earned a criminal conviction. Now, as his remaining court cases continue to get pushed back, Trump is eyeing a more full-time return to the campaign trail. As he makes that pivot, he has also reportedly erased Biden’s longstanding fundraising edge.
Additionally, Trump is working to neuter Democrats’ biggest advantage: abortion. On top of attempting to moderate his own rhetoric on the issue, he successfully pushed the RNC to soften the language in its party platform. We have seen similar efforts work out for Trump in the past. In 2016, for example, voters considered Trump more ideologically moderate than Clinton, which likely helped him win.1
While there is plenty to be concerned about in a second Trump term, such as his pledge to seek retribution against his political enemies (possibly including Biden), the debate highlighted a major concern of Democrats: Biden simply seems too old and frail to effectively fight Trump and make the case against him to voters. And as Trump taps further into his campaign resources, it’s unclear how Biden plans to regain his footing.
A fragile coalition
Part of the reason Biden is in a more precarious polling position this cycle compared to 2020 is that he appears to have lost meaningful support from groups that backed him last time—including voters in his own party. Multiple polls over the last three years (including since the debate) have shown that pluralities or majorities of Democratic voters do not want Biden as their party’s nominee. Though it’s likely many of them would ultimately vote for him anyway, he may not retain the same level of support this time around. At minimum, such intraparty instability just four months out from Election Day does not project strength.2
Biden has lost ground with other key constituencies compared to four years ago as well. This includes severe drop-offs in support among black (-31.5 points), Hispanic (-15.3), and independent (-10) voters.3 There are also signs his support may be eroding among union voters, long a core piece of the Democratic coalition but a group whose cultural views and voting tendencies have shifted rightward in recent years.
Given Biden’s razor-thin win margin in 2020, he doesn’t have much room to fall with any of these groups. Though he has some time to win them back—and, indeed, is working to do so—there aren’t many signs so far that he’s succeeding.
A newly resolute press corps
One of Biden’s biggest headaches since the debate has been the media, with whom he has at times had a contentious relationship and which seems eager to print juicy stories and leaks from his staff about post-debate chaos and the ways in which his health has declined. As more information about his physical and cognitive limitations inevitably emerges in the months to come, journalists will have a field day printing new stories about it. So, even if Biden manages to curb Democrats’ concerns in the immediate term, the drip-drip-drip of behind-the-scenes drama is likely to continue for the remainder of the campaign.
A high likelihood of more public displays of frailty
Part of the reason we can expect to keep seeing stories about Biden’s health from the press is because it’s very likely to continue deteriorating. Concerns about his age have dogged the president since the 2020 campaign, and they have only grown louder since then. Republicans have worked to help spread these worries to voters, promulgating videos over just the past week that showed an indisputable decline in Biden’s demeanor and presentation compared to four years ago.
Unfortunately for Biden, Father Time remains undefeated, and his heightened frailty has engendered a growing chorus of anxious voices. He has already begun facing calls to take a cognitive test. It also came to light this week that an expert who studies Parkinson’s disease visited the White House eight times during the past year. Biden’s team claimed he was simply a regular neurologist and that Biden was not being treated for the disease, but it’s an example of how reporters are now on alert for stories about his possible health issues.
More than just headaches or embarrassments for Biden and his team, all this may compound his electoral problems as well: an overwhelming majority of voters believe he is simply too old to run again. One obvious way to ameliorate Biden’s critics would be to put him in front of a camera in unscripted situations, such as press conferences or in-person interviews, as often as possible. Instead, his team has largely steered him clear of those settings or dragged their feet in agreeing to put him in them, which only serves to reinforce voters’ concerns about his ability to do the job for another four years—or even live to see the end of it.
A changed landscape
One of the biggest challenges Biden must now confront is shifting the dynamic of the race back in his favor by framing it once again as a referendum on Trump, rather than on his own first term. For a while, Biden seemed to be succeeding—he faced no serious primary competition and coasted to securing his party’s nomination. Meanwhile, Trump came back into people’s daily lives as he was charged with various crimes and his trials dominated national news coverage.
However, the debate knocked Biden back on his heels and put him under the spotlight as well. So, while he might prefer to be warning voters about Project 2025 or hitting Trump over his felony conviction, he must now spend precious days defending himself from attacks on his fitness while also trying to sell himself again to a country that has grown weary of him.
It may not all be doom and gloom for Biden. If he does remain the Democratic nominee, he’s bound to see many voters who wanted a different option but who also cannot stand the idea of a second Trump term come home and vote for him. In addition, his base still appears fired up about the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs ruling, as a record share of voters are planning to vote with it in mind. And, of course, it’s not as though Trump is all that popular either.
Still, it’s hard to look at the state of things and not conclude that Biden faces a tall order. Since defeating Trump in 2020, nearly every objective metric has grown worse for him. Even if he survives his current battle, he may still have trouble winning the war.
In 2020, by contrast, voters saw Biden as the more moderate candidate.
This notably stands in contrast to Trump, who kept most Republican voters in his corner after the Access Hollywood tape came out.
Note that these margins are from polling averages gathered through the month of May and thus do not include anything since the June presidential debate.
"...he’s bound to see many voters who wanted a different option but who also cannot stand the idea of a second Trump term come home and vote for him."
This is undoubtedly true. But at least in the case of this lifelong Democrat, I will do so completely disillusioned with the party and it's future.
In the era of a post-truth GOP, I imagine there are many Democrats like myself that take great pride in a party that at least nominally still appeals to reason, rationale, and truth. Biden's continuing campaign obliterates that completely. They will gaslight everyone all the way to election day, and will take the credibility of every supporting party member down with them for a generation. You can't spin cognitive decline, you can only lie about it.
I suspect that one reason journalists and political writers have reacted so quickly to the debate is because they, too, recognize this and also believe the Democrats to be, on average, the party of reason. If you're someone for whom reason and rationality is part of your identity, then seeing your party abdicate it is pretty demoralizing.
Ironically, the only rational argument here is the one the Biden campaign can't make, even if most Democrats will reach this conclusion. That is, that a senile Biden is better than Trump any day of the week.
"One obvious way to ameliorate Biden’s critics would be to put him in front of a camera in unscripted situations, such as press conferences or in-person interviews, as often as possible."
Delusional.