Biden Gets Historically Bad News
Prominent FiveThirtyEight pollster Nate Silver raised a concerning question for Democrats on Monday.
This question followed a significant setback for President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign.
Biden’s approval rating has hit a record low. According to FiveThirtyEight’s average of national polls, his approval rating is now at just 37.6 percent.
This led Silver to pose his unsettling question.
"Trump should drop out too!" is such as weird dunk on people who are pointing out that Biden has big challenges.
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 10, 2024
Yes, Trump should drop out! I agree! Biden would lose by 7 points, but I agree, the Republican Party and the country would be better served by a different nominee. https://t.co/QZMgcisTIA
“… Biden just hit a new all-time low in approval (37.4%) at 538 yesterday. Dropping out would be a big risk. But there’s some threshold below which continuing to run is a bigger risk. Are we there yet?” Silver wrote.
“I don’t know. But it’s more than fair to ask.”
Silver also highlighted that if current trends continue, former President Donald Trump, the leading Republican candidate, is projected to beat the incumbent Democrat by seven points.
Trump’s approval rating stands at 41.6 percent, according to FiveThirtyEight.
A May 30 report from NPR indicates that one of Biden’s key advantages in the 2020 election — young voters — is diminishing.
According to 2020 exit polls cited by NPR, Biden won voters aged 18-29 by over 20 points and voters under 45 by 14 points.
However, these leads have significantly eroded.
Biden’s 14-point lead with voters under 45 has dwindled to just four points.
With Gen-Z and Millennials, Biden’s lead is now only six points.
This is before considering the impact of independent and third-party candidates.
With independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cornel West and Green Party candidate Jill Stein in the race, Trump leads the Gen-Z/Millennial vote by six points and those under 45 by eight points.
Since this polling, the Libertarian party has nominated Chase Oliver as its candidate.
Oliver, who supports LGBT rights and gained attention for defending drag queen story hour, plans to target “young voters angry about the Israel-Hamas war on college campuses, Twitch, and TikTok,” according to Politico.
If these strategies draw more young votes away from Democrats than Republicans, Trump’s lead among young voters could increase further by election day.