Few Voters Want Biden vs. Trump Rematch. NewsWire

NewsWire: 8/4/22

• Neither Democratic nor Republican voters feel enthused about the prospect of a Biden v. Trump rematch in 2024. Between the two, voters would choose Biden by a small margin—but large shares would prefer different candidates. (The New York Times)
• NH: By now, you must have seen headlines about President Biden’s tanking approval ratings. But you might not understand just how low they are. They are historically low.
• We all know how low Trump's approval fell. But Biden's approval, after starting much higher, has now fallen beneath Trump's at the same point in his presidency. According to FiveThirtyEight, which every day averages all current presidential polls, Biden’s approval rating currently sits at just over 39%--and that's after rising over the past week. Trump, on the same day, was at 41%. 

• Trump’s approval rating throughout his presidency averaged just under 43%. Even Trump’s approval right after the January 6th insurrection was higher than Biden’s is today.
• Here's another way to look at the numbers. According to Gallup, the average approval ratings for Biden’s sixth quarter in office (40%) have been worse than those of any other president serving his first term. Gallup has been tracking this figure since Dwight Eisenhower became president in 1953.

• Given these dismal numbers, it is perhaps not surprising that a new NYT/Siena College poll found that 64% of Democrats would prefer another presidential nominee in 2024. Among Democrats under 30, this rises to a whopping 94%. Ouch. That's 19 in 20.
• Yet here's what's interesting. On the Republican side, things aren’t much happier. In a hypothetical matchup of five Republican primary candidates, Trump garnered more support than any other single candidate—but from less than half of voters (49%). In second was Ron DeSantis with 25%. More than half of Republican voters, in other words, want an alternative to the presumptive frontrunner. 16% of Republican voters said that if Trump were the nominee, they’d vote for Biden, vote third-party, or not vote at all.
• Enthusiasm for both candidates was even lower in a new CNN poll. Fully 75% of Democratic voters said they want someone other than Biden, and 55% of Republican voters want someone other than Trump.
• It’s clear that voters are not eager for a 2024 rematch. Nevertheless, the NYT poll showed that if it were to happen, Biden would win again (44% to 41%) and by roughly the same narrow margin. If anything, Trump is the Republican candidate that Democrats prefer…because he might be the only GOP candidate that Biden could beat.
• In a bizarre indicator of just where we are politically, Democratic groups are spending millions to boost Trump-like candidates in Republican primaries in hopes of ending up with opponents they think will be easier to run against. That's a devil's bargain. If one or more of these happens to win, Democratic voters could respond with a vicious backlash against their own incumbent leadership.