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New poll shows whopping 71% of voters think Biden should NOT run again

July 2, 2022 | | Print Article

A new Harvard-Harris poll released Friday found that an overwhelming 71 percent of voters believe President Joe Biden should “not run for a second term” in 2024.

Of this 71 percent, a 45 percent plurality based their decision on the belief that “he’s a bad president.” Others based their decision on the belief that “he’s too old” and that “it’s time for a change.”

When asked the same question about former President Donald Trump, only 61 percent of voters said he shouldn’t “run for president again in 2024,” with the top reasons why being that “he’s erratic,” “he will divide America,” and “he’s responsible for January 6th.”

The poll further found that if both Trump and Biden were to run in 2024, the former president would beat the current president 43 percent to 30 percent.

Similarly, if both Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris were to run, the former president would defeat her 45 percent to 39 percent.

On nearly every front in the poll, both the president and the Democrat Party performed poorly.

A 70 percent majority said the country is on the “wrong track,” up from only 42 percent when Biden took office in early 2021. An even higher 71 percent majority said the economy is also on the wrong track.

A 64 percent majority of voters said their financial situation is “getting worse,” a 49 percent plurality predicted that America “will be in a recession in the next year,” and a 43 percent plurality expressed feeling “pessimistic” about the future.

Regarding approval ratings, Biden was down across the board — on the economy, on stimulating jobs, on fighting terrorism, on fighting immigration, etc. So was his overall job approval, which was down to 38 percent from a high one year ago of 62 percent.

Both the Republican Party and Democrat Party at large were also down in approval, though less so for the GOP than for the Dems. Whereas only 55 percent of voters disapproved of the Republican Party, a higher 60 percent disapproved of the Democrat Party.

All these findings bode extremely badly for the Democrats going into the 2022 midterm elections in November.

As it stands, Republicans were already projected to come out on top in the House.

“Republicans have an 87 percent chance of taking over the House. … That’s far from certain, but Democrats are fighting the odds: Their 13 percent chances are equivalent to tossing a coin and having it come up tails three times in a row,” number cruncher Nate Silver reported late last month.

And preliminary data pointed to a toss-up election in the Senate.

“Indeed, our forecast sees the overall Senate landscape to be about as competitive as it gets. The Deluxe forecast literally has Senate control as a 50-50 tossup. The Classic and Lite forecasts show Democrats as very slight favorites to keep the Senate, meanwhile, with a 59 and a 62 percent chance, respectively,” according to Silver.

As of July 2nd, polling data compiled by RealClearPolitics showed Republicans benefitting from a 2.2 percentage point lead in the generic 2022 congressional ballot.

Keep in mind that generic ballot polls tend to be biased toward the Democrat Party, meaning that the GOP advantage is likely even higher than 2.2 percentage points.

In addition to polling poorly vis-a-vis the upcoming elections, Democrats also polled poorly in regard to the Jan. 6th committee’s hearings.

A surprising 53 percent of voters described the hearings as “biased,” while a higher 54 percent accused it of being “a partisan exercise to gain political points.”

More notably, an overwhelming 63 percent majority agreed that “Congress should be … focusing on other issues like crime and inflation.” A 67 percent majority of Independent voters and 86 percent majority of GOP voters felt this way.

(Source: Harvard-Harris)

The poll did also contain a little bit of bad news for Republicans. Namely, a 55 percent majority of voters opposed the conservative-led Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

This disagreement could potentially be felt in the November ballots. And indeed, if you closely look at RCP’s generic ballot data, you’ll notice that the spread between Democrats and Republicans has narrowed in the wake of the high court’s decision, albeit not by much.

But on the other hand, a 63 percent majority of voters viewed the Supreme Court as “legitimate” versus “illegitimate,” and a surprising 59 percent majority thought it was “wrong” for “Democrats to call the Supreme Court illegitimate.”

Lastly, voters were asked whether the Roe v. Wade decision makes them more likely to vote for a Democrat or Republican in November. Interestingly, 36 percent of voters chose Republican, and an equal 36 percent of voters chose Democrats.

Vivek Saxena
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