Biden's in Trouble, Part V

The latest result is so bad the WaPo is at pains to denounce its own poll.

I don’t know how much the cumulative impact of inflation has been since Biden took office and started printing up zillions to send out for “COVID relief,” pay off loans for thousands of student deadbeats, and otherwise blast through spending restraint in a way that would make even Donald Trump blush (yes, he did it too, just not as much or as shamelessly). I do know that Biden’s intentional forfeiture of national sovereignty by effectively erasing the border has now resulted in a system so grossly overburdened that blue state governors and mayors have started to complain. (Gone are the days of “welcoming” and “inclusive” and all that “we-are-compassionate” stuff that’s so easy to bloviate about as long as you don’t have to pick up the tab).

Then there’s crime, snarling racial preferences for the politically preferred minorities (Asians and Jews need not apply), crackpot transgender bullying, and saying goodbye to energy independence, but Ringside has already said a good deal about that.

Biden might have thought all this would go over well, or at least would get swept under the rug while the press hilariously (if doggedly) tries to push the idea that “Bidenomics” is making you rich.

Polling is not cooperating. Hence this headline from yesterday’s ABC News:

Trump Edges Out Biden 51-42 in Head-to-Head Matchup

You gotta love “edges out.” The press never disappoints. A nine point margin is decently close to a landslide, and is bigger than any margin either man has enjoyed at any point. If I recall correctly, it’s bigger than any margin either candidate held at any point in the runup to the 2016 election that put Trump in the White House.

On the other hand, once you get past the “edges out,” ABC is not doing a lot to gussy it up:

President Joe Biden's job approval rating is 19 points underwater, his ratings for handling the economy and immigration are at career lows. A record number of Americans say they've become worse off under his presidency, three-quarters say he's too old for another term and Donald Trump is looking better in retrospect -- all severe challenges for Biden in his reelection campaign ahead.

Forty-four percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they've gotten worse off financially under Biden's presidency, the most for any president in ABC/Post polls since 1986. Just 37% approve of his job performance, while 56% disapprove. Still fewer approve of Biden's performance on the economy, 30%.

On handling immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, Biden's rating is even lower, with 23% approval. In terms of intensity of sentiment, 20% strongly approve of his work overall, while 45% strongly disapprove. And the 74% who say he's too old for a second term is up 6 percentage points since May. Views that Trump is too old also are up, but to 50% in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates.

Q: Still think Joe’s getting re-nominated? Hint: There’s a reason the media prints rather than buries a story like this.

Such is down-on-Biden sentiment that if a government shutdown occurs at month's end, 40% say they'd chiefly blame him and the Democrats in Congress, versus 33% who'd pin it on the Republicans in Congress -- even given the GOP infighting behind the budget impasse.

Oh dear! It used to be a gimme that Republicans got blamed for a government shutdown (not that it actually really shuts down, mind you, but that’s its own story).

And then there’s this admission:

Trump, for his part, has improved in retrospect. When he reluctantly left office in January 2021, 38% approved of his work as president, essentially the same as Biden's rating now. But currently, looking back, 48% say they approve of Trump's performance when he was in office -- matching his peak as president. Essentially as many -- 49% -- now disapprove, down from 60% when he left the White House.

Comparison with Biden may be a factor. Among the 56% of Americans who disapprove of Biden's work in office, a wide 75% say that, looking back, they approve of Trump.

Yes, it’s all true. If you want to look good, or at least better, nothing is as handy as a comparison with Biden’s tenure. This is the reason the Democrats and the media will leave no stone unturned to portray Trump as the incumbent, and January 6, 2021 as the only day he held office, while downplaying to the extent possible the fact that Biden (or his replacement) has been running the country for the last several years, and had both houses of Congress for the first half of the term.

Buried well down the story is the truly stunning news.

Head-to-head in a hypothetical November 2024 matchup, Trump has 51% support while Biden has 42% -- numerically up 3 points for Trump and down 2 points for Biden from an ABC/Post poll in February, shifts that are not statistically significant.

There's even less change from the most recent ABC/Post poll in May, which had the race at 49-42% (again with a different, but comparable, question wording). Still, with Trump inching over 50% -- and other polls showing a closer contest -- a close look is warranted.

Indeed, the story is so bad that it took less than a day for the press to start disclaiming it.

[T]he latest Washington Post-ABC News poll showed Trump leading the president by 10 points (52%-42%) — a result that even the newspaper suggests may be an outlier….

In explaining how Trump's 10-point lead could potentially be an outlier, The Washington Post highlighted "the difference between this poll and others, as well as the unusual makeup of Trump's and Biden's coalitions in this survey."

Should Trump become the GOP nominee, he would clearly be very competitive in a race with Biden at this juncture, but several numbers stand out in the Washington Post-ABC News poll.

In both the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections, Trump won 46% and 47% of the national popular vote, respectively. So the former president now earning support from 52% of the electorate — when he remains widely unpopular among a broad segment of voters — could be seen by many as an outlier.

Two points to note here. First, to say that a poll is an outlier is not to say it’s wrong. It might simply be picking up a snowballing trend that wasn’t present during earlier polling — say, for example, the no-longer-deniable extent to which Biden has simply forfeited enforcement of the nation’s borders, and that the true, gargantuan cost of this surrender is only now hitting home.

Second — and to be perfectly honest — I tend to agree that the poll is open to question in the way the press wants to convey by calling it an outlier — to wit, that it’s hard to believe that Trump is this far out in front. To start with, he never has been. More than that, his utterly self-involved, unrepentant, and backward looking behavior shows no signs of abating. He’s facing 91 felony counts in four separate venues, some pretty much concocted (Manhattan) but some very serious (Jack Smith’s Florida indictment). All other current polling shows the matchup even, or with Trump holding a slight lead, almost always within the margin of error.

So if push comes to shove, I don’t really believe this poll. But I do believe two related items — first, that Trump would win the election if held today; and second, that the Democrats are seriously waking up to the fact that Biden is very likely to lose and therefore will have to be (and is going to be) replaced.