Biden Reportedly ‘Upset’ About String of Polls Showing Him Losing to Trump

Isaac SchorrDec 18th, 2023, 10:04 am
 
President Joe Biden speaks during a meeting on combating fentanyl, in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Tuesday, Nov. 21, 2023, in Washington.

AP Photo/Evan Vucci

President Joe Biden is “upset” over a strings of polls suggesting that he could lose the 2024 election to former President Donald Trump, according to a new report from The Washington Post.

The RealClearPolitics average of surveys testing how a rematch between Biden and Trump might play out indicates that Trump has a solid, three and a half point lead over Biden. Biden leads Trump in just one off the last ten polls measuring the hypothetical, besting Trump by one point in an NPR/PBS poll earlier this month.

From the Post:

After pardoning a pair of turkeys, an annual White House tradition, Biden delivered some stern words for the small group assembled: His poll numbers were unacceptably low and he wanted to know what his team and his campaign were doing about it. He complained that his economic message had done little to move the ball, even as the economy was growing and unemployment was falling, according to people familiar with his comments, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private conversation.

For months, the president and first lady Jill Biden have told aides and friends they are frustrated by the president’s low approval rating and the polls that show him trailing former president Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination — and in recent weeks, they have grown upset that they are not making more progress.

Even more ominous for Biden is his dismal standing in critical battleground states. A Bloomberg/Morning Consult found last week that the incumbent trailed the Republican frontrunner in Wisconsin (by 4%), Georgia (6%), Michigan (4%), Pennsylvania (2%), Nevada (3%), North Carolina (9%), and Arizona (4%).

In 2020, Biden prevailed in every one of those swing states except North Carolina.

White House Deputy Communications Director Andrew Bates told the Post, “We do not discuss the President’s private conversations one way or the other,” while campaign spokesman T.J. Ducklo insisted that the campaign remained optimistic.

“We are methodically and strategically building the infrastructure we’ll need to activate the broad and diverse coalition of voters that sent Joe Biden and Kamala D. Harris to the White House, and are confident that the full campaign apparatus that builds off three years of significant investments at the DNC will be a powerful force to defeat whatever MAGA Republican we face next year,” said Ducklo.

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