BOSTON — President Joe Biden’s approval rating continues to sink — dropping to 39% — so he’s pivoting to the comedy circuit in a calculated attempt to woo dissatisfied young voters, a political wonk says.
Jimmy Kimmel is tweeting Biden’s appearance Wednesday is “no malarkey.”
It also comes on the same night and ABC channel as the Celtics and Warriors Game 3 tilt at Boston’s TD Garden with the series knotted up 1-1.
“He’s got to get his voter share up,” James Carville, a longtime go-to Democratic political consultant, told the Herald. “There are good strategic reasons to do things like going on Jimmy Kimmel.”
Political access to young voters, getting his message out ahead of anything the U.S. Supreme Court may rule any day, and trying to blunt former President Donald Trump all qualify as “good reasons,” Carville said.
This all comes as Biden’s “window of political revival” is closing, according to Politico, with the president looking more like Jimmy Carter than Barack Obama 2.0.
Plus, Biden’s poll numbers have slipped below Trump’s — a figure Carville disputes.
“Both are at 42%,” Carville says of Biden halfway into the second year of his tenure.
But one pollster shows Trump was at 49% at this stage in his presidency, while Biden is at 41%. That’s according to Rasmussen Polls.
Biden has even slipped to 38% in an Emerson College poll from last month.
“Biden is struggling with swing voters, particularly Independents and suburban voters; majorities of Independent voters at 55% and suburban voters at 53% disapprove of the job Biden is doing as President,” Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, said in a statement that went with that poll.
The economy, crimes, health care, America’s place in the world and Biden’s overall leadership are all pulling at his numbers. The war in Ukraine and a pandemic that’s still lingering are also dogging his administration, numerous pollsters say.
“It’s something that has bedeviled quite a few previous presidents. Lots of things happen on your watch, but it doesn’t mean there is a magic wand to fix it,” Robert Gibbs, a press secretary under Barack Obama, told Politico. “The limits of the presidency are not well grasped. The responsibility of the president is greater than the tools he has to fix it.”
What’s working in Biden’s favor are both Supreme Court decisions — especially over abortion — that are due out this summer along with the Jan. 6 hearings, which start Thursday, in Congress that will make June a make-or-break month.
Biden heads to Hollywood for the Kimmel show as he hosts the ninth Summit of the Americas. Kimmel, a fan favorite of Democrats and liberals, tapes in L.A.
The summit is for leaders from across the hemisphere to discuss economic prosperity, climate change, the migration crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, the White House told the Associated Press.
Biden is set to welcome attendees with an opening address scheduled for Thursday.
Biden has said he intends to seek re-election in 2024; Trump has hinted but has yet to say definitively if he’s all in for another campaign. Former Vice President Mike Pence does look like a GOP candidate in 2024, as do a few governors, including New Hampshire’s Chris Sununu, Florida’s Ron DeSantis and Virginia’s Glenn Youngkin.
———
