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When President Joe Biden won four years ago, he did so with more than 51% of the popular vote — the highest for any national candidate since Barack Obama’s first victory 12 years earlier. The Democratic incumbent’s support isn’t nearly that high now.
In fact, FiveThirtyEight’s model puts Biden’s approval rating at roughly 39%, which is enough to send plenty in his party reaching for antacids. It’d be a mistake to assume that the president’s re-election prospects are doomed — FiveThirtyEight’s model also shows Biden running neck-and-neck with the presumptive Republican nominee — but the data clearly suggests the incumbent has some work to do.
But that’s not all the data suggests.
Given that Biden won with 51% support, and now has an approval rating below 40%, there are clearly constituencies that supported the Democrat before, but who are not altogether pleased now. It stands to reason that some of these voters might even be willing to give Donald Trump a second look, given the dissatisfaction with the status quo.
What’s amazing is how eager the former president is to alienate many of those same voters.
While many Muslim-American voters have been deeply critical of Biden, Trump isn’t exactly rolling out the welcome mat. The Republican has endorsed Israel’s military offensive in Gaza, announced plans to expand his Muslim ban, condemned pro-Palestinian protests, and rejected the idea of bringing Gaza residents to the United States as refugees.
While polls suggest Black voters might be open to a Biden alternative, Team Trump said it intends to focus on “anti-white racism“ rather than discrimination against people of color. The former president himself recently complained, “I think there is a definite anti-white feeling in this country and that can’t be allowed, adding, “[T]here’s absolutely a bias against white.”
While polls suggest Latino voters might be open to a Biden alternative, Trump has spent recent months condemning migrants from Latin American countries by echoing Hitler and making comments such as, “They’re not humans, they’re animals.” The Republican is also planning to embrace militarized mass deportations and detention camps in a possible second term.
While polls suggest young voters might be open to a Biden alternative, Trump and his allies have fought tooth and nail to oppose the White House’s efforts to address student loan debt relief. Trump also plans to be even worse on the climate crisis than he was in his first term, which tends to be the opposite of what most young voters are looking for in a candidate.
As for working-class voters concerned about their expenses, Trump has made painfully clear that he doesn’t understand the basics of inflation, and he has an unambiguous plan to make inflation worse.
If Biden is fortunate, his likely GOP rival will continue to spend the next several months alienating, insulting, and offending the voters who might’ve voted Democratic four years ago, but who are open to something different in 2024.