Democratic supporters of President Biden should quit freaking out. Despite what a handful of recent polls suggest, there’s good reason to believe that the White House’s policies and performance will be judged a success by the voting public, and that Biden will be elected to another four years.
Pundits and pollsters have been warning for months that Biden’s anemic approval rating, mired around 39 percent, means Democrats are in imminent danger of losing the White House.
“He’s losing now and there’s no plan to fix the problems other than hoping that the polls are wrong or that voters look at the race differently when they have more time to focus on it,” writes author/statistician Nate Silver.
“Biden is not up by 12 points. He can’t coast to victory here. He is losing. He is behind in most polls,” says New York Times columnist Ezra Klein. “He is behind, despite everything people already know about Donald Trump. He needs to make up ground. If he does not make up ground, Trump wins.”
Silver and Klein both believe that Biden’s age makes his reelection hopeless and that he should quit the race. Other analysis pieces cite polls suggesting Biden is losing ground with Black, Latino, and Asian voters. Vox’s Christian Paz recently looked at numbers suggesting Biden is struggling to attract traditionally Democratic-leaning young voters.
At most, the numbers point to geographic regions and constituencies that need some attention........