‘Outlier’ or Not, the New WaPo/ABC Poll Is a Showstopper

I did a double-take after seeing these numbers yesterday morning.  The latest Washington Post/ABC News national poll, which Matt touched on here, is a blockbuster.  A few important caveats:  First, even though a lot of surveys have been quite ugly for President Biden recently, the staggering depth of his struggles in this latest poll very much looks like an outlier — for now.  Second, the general election is more than a year away.  Hypothetical polling this far out is mostly meaningless, in terms of predictive value. But may be a little less meaningless than would be the case under different circumstances, a point to which I’ll return later.  Third, if we do indeed witness a 2020 rematch next year, other data shows that a Trump criminal conviction on one or more felony counts (a real possibility) could upend the race, even if he’s currently competitive-to-favored.

With all that being said, Democrats who were already feeling increasingly queasy about the prospect of marching into 2024’s electoral battle with Biden at the top of the ticket might have felt compelled to reach for the smelling salts or a stiff drink after glancing at these numbers.  Wreckage:

President Joe Biden’s job approval rating is 19 points underwater, his ratings for handling the economy and immigration are at career lows. A record number of Americans say they’ve become worse off under his presidency, three-quarters say he’s too old for another term and Donald Trump is looking better in retrospect — all severe challenges for Biden in his reelection campaign ahead. Forty-four percent of Americans in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll say they’ve gotten worse off financially under Biden’s presidency, the most for any president in ABC/Post polls since 1986. Just 37% approve of his job performance, while 56% disapprove. Still fewer approve of Biden’s performance on the economy, 30%. On handling immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, Biden’s rating is even lower, with 23% approval. In terms of intensity of sentiment, 20% strongly approve of his work overall, while 45% strongly disapprove. And the 74% who say he’s too old for a second term is up 6 percentage points since May. Such is down-on-Biden sentiment that if a government shutdown occurs at month’s end, 40% say they’d chiefly blame him and the Democrats in Congress, versus 33% who’d pin it on the Republicans in Congress — even given the GOP infighting behind the budget impasse.

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