Incumbents rarely lagged in approval ratings since 1943
Declining support within the Democratic Party
Widespread opposition to the East conflict
U.S. President Joe Biden is trailing former U.S. President Donald Trump in major U.S. polls, a rare occurrence for an incumbent president.
According to CNN on the 18th (local time), Trump’s approval rating has outpaced Biden’s by 2-4% in recent polls conducted by CBS News, CNN, Fox News, the Marquette Law School, and Quinnipiac University. Even while acknowledging that Trump’s approval rating is within the margin of error, CNN evaluated that averaging these results paints a picture of problems for the incumbent.
CNN described this as a “historically low level of support for a sitting president.” Over the past 80 years, CNN reported that incumbent presidents have led by a little over 10 percentage points on average about a year before the U.S. presidential election. Since Franklin Roosevelt in 1943, most incumbent presidents have held the upper hand in approval ratings over their rivals.
CNN draws attention to the poll results that show Trump, albeit within the margin of error, gaining the upper hand over Biden. This is because Trump is most likely to face off against Biden. This starkly contrasts to a year before the 2020 presidential election when Trump’s approval rating was about 10 percentage points behind Biden.
Biden’s approval rating has recently been downward, heightening a sense of crisis. According to NBC on the same day, Biden’s approval rating has fallen to 40%. Voters cited opposition to Biden’s foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war as reasons.
NBC reported that young Democratic supporters are not supporting Biden. NBC said, “The decline in Biden’s approval rating is most noticeable among Democratic supporters, most of whom believe that Israel’s military response was excessive.” “70% of voters aged 18 to 34 evaluated Biden’s handling of the war negatively,” the report added.
By. Kwon Seong Jin
Most Commented