Though we’re still more than a year out from the 2024 presidential election, the season for Democratic “bedwetting” has come early this cycle. Leading the apparent panic this month are a series of polls and accompanying analysis showing something that’s been pretty obvious for some time: Joe Biden is a really unpopular president — and that dissatisfaction will make a 2024 showdown with a Republican opponent pretty competitive.
Those recent surveys, from CNN and the Wall Street Journal, have shown Biden and his likely Republican opponent, former president Donald Trump, essentially tied or with a narrow Trump lead. Polling averages reflect the same dynamic. None of it should be surprising — though Democrats have openly or anonymously been torn about just how much to be worried by these polls. Some longtime Democratic operatives have dismissed the fears from insiders and donors: Former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina, for example, has been quick to tell fellow Democrats to relax and “just take a step back,” while others have argued that it’s too early, or attacked the polls themselves.
But there is value in looking at the polls because they reveal something else: At this point in the campaign, it’s unarguable that Democrats, especially Biden, are facing a problem with voters of color. And that weaker standing with Black and Latino voters specifically seems to be fueling those tight national polling numbers.
That lower level of support for Biden is distinct from previous election cycles. The New York Times’ Nate Cohn, who has been tracking this for some time, analyzed last year and this year’s New York Times/Siena polls of over 1,500 nonwhite respondents. He reports that Biden leads Trump 53 percent to 28 percent among registered nonwhite voters — a sharp drop off from the 70 percent support Biden garnered from voters of color in the 2020 election. Those numbers aren’t exclusive to the Times, either, but show up across surveys….
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