By Dave Andrusko
While it did not pack quite the wallop the recent New York Times/Sienna poll “showing the president behind in five of six key states. Voters cite his economic track record, indicators notwithstanding,” Sunday’s Meet the Press where NBC national political correspondent Steve Kornacki analyzed the results of a new NBC News Poll wasn’t far behind!
That poll found that President Biden’s approval rating had hit a new low–40%–with 57% disapproving.
Tim Hanes neatly summarized the other low points:
President Trump is leading Biden 46-44% in the general election polls for the first time. Even more remarkably, Trump is leading 46-42% among voters 18-39 years of age. Biden won this age group by 26 points in the 2020 election.
Finally, the poll shows Biden and Trump’s likability numbers about even for the first time.
Meet the Press’s Kristen Welker, who interviewed Kornacki, remarked, “The significance is that is the lowest President Biden has ever measured in our poll in terms of job approval.”
Kornacki responded
Just look at the sea change from the start of this year. Recall, remember, Democrats coming off strong from the 2020 midterms, he was almost even. Now he’s 17 points underwater.
If you look by party, it’s significant for two reasons. One, independents, obviously, more than two to one disapprove. You don’t want to be there as an incumbent president. But equally significant, no surprise, 7% of Republicans approve of Joe Biden’s job performance, but three times as many Democrats, 21%, more than one in five, say they disapprove.
Referring to Trump’s 46-44% lead, Welker said, “This is significant because this is the first time in the history of our poll that former President Trump beats President Biden, still within the margin of error, but still significant.”
The bad news for pro-abortion President Biden continues to mount. Mark Murray summarized more of the recent polling results:
The NBC News poll isn’t the only recent poll showing President Biden struggling with young voters, especially after the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
CNN’s recent national poll had Trump ahead of Biden by 1 point among voters ages 18 to 34.
Quinnipiac University had Biden ahead by 9 points in that subgroup.
The national Fox News poll had Biden up 7 points among that age group.
And the recent New York Times/Siena College battleground state polling had Biden ahead by just 1 point among voters ages 18 to 34.
And finally, a large decrease in support from one of the Democrat party’s staunchest supporters:
Black voters are more disconnected from the Democratic Party than they have been in decades, frustrated with what many see as inaction on their political priorities and unhappy with President Biden, a candidate they helped lift to the White House just three years ago.
New polls by The New York Times and Siena College found that 22 percent of Black voters in six of the most important battleground states said they would support former President Donald J. Trump in next year’s election, and 71 percent would back Mr. Biden.
The drift in support is striking, given that Mr. Trump won just 8 percent of Black voters nationally in 2020 and 6 percent in 2016, according to the Pew Research Center. A Republican presidential candidate has not won more than 12 percent of the Black vote in nearly half a century.
President Biden celebrated his 81st birthday yesterday, making him the oldest person ever to occupy the Oval Office.
More tomorrow.