How We Feel About President Biden as He Begins His Re-election Bid
Bottom Line: It’s no secret President Biden’s popularity has been low throughout the first half of his first term of his presidency. Perhaps nothing sums up our collective feeling better than the NBC News poll released this week as President Biden was set to kick off his campaign. The headline... 70% of Americans don’t want President Biden to run. A figure that’s 10% higher than that of his leading challenger former President Donald Trump. However, as Donald Trump in 2016 and George W. Bush in 2000 proved, it’s not national polling or popular vote totals which matter most. It’s how people feel and vote in individual states.
Joe Biden won 25 states and the District of Columbia in route to winning the presidency by a 306 to 232 Electoral Vote total. As President Biden has officially announced his reelection bid let's look at where he currently stands based on specific state data. Currently there are only ten states in which he retains net positive approval. Those states are California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. This means President Biden is underwater in 15 states he won in 2020. It also means he's currently beginning his campaign with the support of only 145 of the necessary 270 Electoral College votes to win re-election. What’s more, even in the states where he retains net positive approval right now, he’s only above 50% approval with voters in four states – Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and Vermont – meaning that the other six could potentially be in play under ideal circumstances for a challenger.
As mentioned yesterday, President Biden is starting this campaign from a historically weak position with a lower approval rating at the onset of his re-election bid than any president who has won re-election since the onset of the polling age in the 1930’s. When looking at individual states, it further illustrates how vulnerable he currently is to a strong challenger.