OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
President Joe Biden has become one of the most unpopular presidents in modern times, and that won’t bode well for his reelection bid later this year, an MSNBC analyst said on Sunday.
One of the network’s political analysts, Steve Kornacki, claimed that NBC’s end-of-year poll is comparable to data for other presidents entering the final year of their first terms.
Biden was at 40 percent approval in the survey, which was released in November, and 57 percent disapproval, which Kornacki said is the “lowest” of all, dating back to President George H. W. Bush, who went on to lose his reelection bid to Democrat Bill Clinton.
In an analysis of average 2024 general election polls, the trend shifted from favoring Biden over Trump by 2 points to Trump leading by plus-two. Political commentator Kornacki highlighted the significance of voter concerns, with three out of four expressing major to moderate worries about Biden’s age (81) and fitness for the presidency.
He also noted that the “big thing” for Trump is the increasing anxiety around his legal situation, especially if there is a conviction, adding that the race is expected to be very close.
Kornacki also said the data showed that Democratic and Republican voters generally did not prefer either Biden or Trump, respectively.
“Broadly, there’s not a big appetite for Trump versus Biden, even though it seems that each party, at least as we enter 2024, is poised to go in that direction,” he said.
Kornacki presented a graphic from a recent poll by The Wall Street Journal, expanding the presidential contest beyond the two major parties to include notable figures like Robert Kennedy Jr. and potential candidate Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV). The poll reflects a broader perspective on potential contenders in the upcoming election.
“They included a bunch of third party options and against Biden and Trump. They added up to 17%. That’s a big question heading into 2024. Is it going to be a real third-party candidate to create a wild card in this?” he asked.
MSNBC's Steve Kornacki: Biden's approval rating is "the lowest NBC poll for an incumbent facing a re-election year" pic.twitter.com/W8MEDKLO77
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) December 31, 2023
According to several political analysts, the Biden administration’s ongoing prosecutions of Trump are certainly helping the latter’s polling numbers, with one of them recently noting that Biden was turning Trump into the ‘Nelson Mandela of America’ — a wrongly persecuted martyr of monumental proportions.
“Nearly 7 in 10 voters, or 69%, believe that politics ‘has played’ a role in the four indictments against Trump, according to a new survey shared with Secrets,” the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard wrote last week.
He added: “Voters are angered at what they see as Democratic strong-arm tactics to take out America’s most popular politician with legal and political tactics and believe that President Joe Biden and his Justice Department are behind it.”
Additionally, 58 percent of respondents said they believe that Biden himself has had a role in ensuring Trump was indicted, including a third of Democrats, 54 percent of black voters, and 58 percent of Hispanic respondents. Also, more than half — 56 percent — say they want the DOJ to “stop targeting Donald Trump and interfering with the upcoming presidential election and Biden should let the voters decide who the next president should be,” the survey said.
“Biden is trying to make Donald Trump the Nelson Mandela of America,” said Trump pollster John McLaughlin told Bedard.
He wrote: Mandela spent 27 years in jail because he opposed South Africa’s white leadership and he was elected president when he was eventually freed, turned out of jail as a hero for standing firm in rejecting his opponents.
The poll was done before the left-leaning Colorado Supreme Court booted Trump off the primary ballot pending an appeal, but McLaughlin said the move fits a pattern Republican and some moderate voters see as a Soviet-style effort to silence enemies.
“To disenfranchise the leading political candidate in the United States is sad for American democracy and freedoms,” McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin suggested that, like the indictments, the ballot ban in Colorado and potentially other states could have the unintended consequence of strengthening Trump. He added that he’s been tracking that pattern for months.
“It’s only galvanizing the support for him, the political persecution. It’s scary,” he said.
