President Biden’s summer of discontent is off to a rocky start on the heels of his first campaign rally, with polls showing Democrats shunning him, voters feeling worse off, and twice-indicted former President Donald Trump polling ahead of him.
Mr. Trump leads Mr. Biden by 6 percentage points in hypothetical head-to-head matchups in two recent surveys, including a Rasmussen Reports poll released Monday.
In that survey, 45% of likely voters chose Mr. Trump for president, 39% favored Mr. Biden and 12% wanted someone else.
The findings echo the latest Harvard-Harris poll, also taken after Mr. Trump’s federal indictment last week on charges of mishandling classified documents. That survey showed Mr. Trump with a lead of 45% to 39%.
A Quinnipiac University poll last week showed Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump, 48% to 44%, although that 4-point lead was within the poll’s margin of error.
“Americans remain politically split 50-50 but just about 100% are unhappy with the direction of the country, the economy, and their political leaders,” said Mark Penn, co-director of the Harvard CAPS/Harris Poll. “Biden’s approval is frozen in place despite the debt ceiling deal and a recovering stock market; yet Trump’s numbers are also unshaken after an unprecedented federal indictment.”
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A poll for Dailymail.com reinforces the challenges that Mr. Biden has been facing for more than a year.
Almost half of Democrats believe the 80-year-old president is too old for the job, and 52% of all voters believe they are worse off since he became president.
Overall, 71% of likely general election voters believe he is too old to be president.
Mr. Biden’s approval rating is hovering just above 40% in most polls, an awkward position for any president seeking a second term, let alone the oldest in history.
On the economy, his rating is even lower — 35% in the latest Reuters/IPSOS survey. Poll watchers note that Mr. Biden’s approval ratings went south one year ago when inflation hit 9.1%, and the president’s numbers haven’t recovered even though inflation has declined steadily since then.
At his first official campaign rally for reelection, held in Philadelphia on Saturday before a friendly union crowd, Mr. Biden said his supporters are “coming together.”
He pointed to broad endorsement from environmental groups and early commitments from labor unions.
“Coming this early, it’s going to make a gigantic difference in this campaign,” the president said. “We’ve got a story to tell. We’ve got a record to run on.”
But Mr. Biden also is facing rivals in the Democratic primary, mainly 69-year-old Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
A Convention of States Action poll conducted by the Trafalgar Group, released Monday, found that 78% of voters favor a Biden-Kennedy debate, including 58% of Democrats and 93% of Republicans.
That survey found that 64% of voters believe Mr. Biden is too old to serve effectively a second term.
“Even members of his own party want to see him square off in a public debate against his Democratic primary opponent, presumably to assure themselves he’s up to the task,” said Mark Meckler, president of the Convention of States.
• Valerie Richardson contributed to this report.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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