Among the large number of Americans who don’t want to vote for either President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump in 2024, the 80-year-old Delawarean is far and above seen as the least bad option, polling shows.
Mr Biden’s vulnerability as a candidate, with NBC polling showing that he has a 54 per cent disapproval rate and 70 per cent saying they don’t want him to run for a second term, is offset by the 60 per cent of voters who say they don’t want to see Mr Trump run again either.
According to a poll conducted for the Wall Street Journal by the Trump-supporting super PAC pollster Tony Fabrizio, among that significant swathe of voters who dislike both of the likely candidates, Mr Biden is seen by far as the lesser of two evils. In that group of voters who want new candidates, Mr Biden leads Mr Trump by 39 per cent, with 54 per cent supporting Mr Biden and 15 per cent supporting Mr Trump.
Swing voters, the group of people coveted by political operatives who often decide the outcomes of presidential elections, prefer Mr Biden by a large margin if they’re forced to choose between him and Mr Trump.
The GOP need a majority of the 54 per cent who disapprove of Mr Biden to vote for the Republican candidate to win. And their likely nominee, who still appears to have an iron-clad grip on the party base, appears unable to attract those voters.
In an op-ed for The Washington Post, former GOP speechwriter Marc Thiessen writes that the GOP picking Mr Trump will allow Mr Biden to “get away” with the worst inflation and wage decline in decades, record-high gas prices, labour shortages, and a rise in crime.
Mr Thiessen, who worked for President George W Bush between 2007 and 2009, said: “That record should doom any president’s chances of winning reelection. But if Trump is the Republican nominee, Biden likely gets away with it. By contrast, if Republicans nominate someone else — almost anyone else — then the GOP can turn Biden’s 54 per cent disapproval rating into an albatross around his neck”.
Anne Caprara, the chief of staff to Illinois governor JB Pritzker who previously ran Hillary Clinton’s 2016 super PAC, told The New York Times: “I’m always going to be worried because we’re a very divided country, and presidential races are going to be close, no matter who is in it”.
“But for the first time in my career, I think Republicans have painted themselves into a terrible position. They’re losing and they can’t seem to see that,” she added.
