Polls show Biden facing 'enthusiasm gap' heading into 2024 election season
Recent polling shows that President Biden is facing a significant lack of enthusiasm from voters as he also loses support from key groups that historically have buoyed Democrats.
Several national polls in recent weeks suggest that President Biden is suffering from an enthusiasm gap when it comes to how excited his Democratic base and voters in general are to support him in November.
A Monmouth University poll conducted earlier this month showed that only 32% of registered voters feel at least somewhat enthusiastic about Biden’s candidacy and that number stands at just 62% among Democrats.
The same number of registered voters, 32%, say they are at least somewhat confident in Biden’s physical and mental ability to be president.
The same poll shows that confidence in Biden’s abilities among Democrats has dropped significantly to 72% after standing at 91% in 2020.
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The Monmouth poll also shows Biden with a meager 39% approval rating and that he is under water on several issues with voters, including jobs, immigration and foreign policy.
The weak approval rating is backed up by other polls as evidenced by the Real Clear Politics average showing that his approval rating has been under 50% since August 2021.
According to Gallup, Biden is significantly losing support from key demographics, including young voters, Black voters and Hispanic voters.
Gallup explained that most of the decline in Black voters referring to themselves as Democrats has been in the last few years.
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"Most of the decline has been recent, with the net-Democratic ID for this group falling 19 points from a 66-point advantage in 2020," Gallup said. "At that time, 77% of Black adults favored the Democrats and 11% the Republicans, so the 2023 findings represent an 11-point decrease in Democratic affiliation since 2020 and an eight-point increase in Republican affiliation."
Mainstream news outlets have taken notice of the enthusiasm numbers, including the New York Times editorial board, which wrote earlier this month that Biden "needs to do more to show the public that he is fully capable of holding office until age 86."
Also in February, prominent election handicapper Nate Silver warned that Biden is "losing now and there’s no plan to fix the problems other than hoping that the polls are wrong."
The Biden campaign pointed Fox News Digital to "several indicators of enthusiasm" they have seen in favor of the president.
"In the Nevada primary, we saw higher turnout than 2008 – despite that being a far more competitive election," Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt said. "The email from the First Lady after the Hur report was our best performing email since the launch."
Hitt also pointed to Biden winning "more votes in NH as a write in candidate than Obama did in ‘12" and highlighted that Obama was on the ballot and Biden wasn't.
"January was our best grassroots fundraising month ever, we doubled the number of small-dollar donors from December," Hitt added. "We brought in over $1M in donations following President Biden’s speech marking the anniversary of the January 6th insurrection."
