By Dave Andrusko
Photo: Gage Skidmore
A brief last-item-of-the-day based on a story from CNBC’s Kevin Breuninger. The headline?
“Biden gets low marks on economy and major concerns about his age as he looks to Trump rematch, new poll shows.” That poll was taken by the Wall Street Journal.
Not exactly new news. The President’s job approval number, according to Gallup, have been awful (and getting worse) since his numbers dropped below 50% in September 2021!
So the economy and “major concerns about his age,“ Breuninger writes, “could be what’s dragging Biden’s overall job approval underwater at 42%, versus some 57% who disapprove, according to the Wall Street Journal poll of 1,500 registered voters contacted Aug. 24-30.”
A 60% majority of registered voters indicated in the poll that they do not consider Biden “mentally up for the job” of being president. Nearly three-fourths of respondents, 73%, said they think Biden is too old to run for president — a much higher response than they gave Trump, who is 77 years old.
According to the Wall Street Journal’s Sabrina Siddiqui and Catherine Lucey
The negative views of Biden’s age and performance in office help explain why only 39% of voters hold a favorable view of the president. In a separate question, some 42% said they approve of how he is handling his job, well below the 57% who disapprove.
What’s more, 63% of the respondents “said they viewed the strength of the U.S. economy negatively, including 36% who called it ‘poor,” Breuninger continues. “Worse for Biden, 58% of registered voters said the economy has gotten worse over the past two years, compared to 28% who said it has gotten better. Inflation is a major pain point: 74% of respondents said it has moved in the wrong direction over the past year.”
One other fascinating conclusion drawn by Siddiqui and Lucey:
By an 11-point margin, more voters see Trump rather than Biden as having a record of accomplishments as president—some 40% said Biden has such a record, while 51% said so of Trump. By an eight-point margin, more voters said Trump has a vision for the future. And by 10 points, more described Trump as mentally up to the presidency. Some 46% said that is true of Trump, compared with 36% who said so of Biden.
More tomorrow.