Biden Is Politically Dead, and Yet He Still Beats Donald Trump in the Polls

By Charles C. W. Cooke

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

 

On National Review’s homepage today, Rich Lowry writes that “for the good of the country, Biden shouldn’t run again.”

 

The same is true of Donald Trump.

 

In my view, there are many, many reasons for this — not least that Trump permanently disqualified himself from consideration with his behavior after the 2020 election. But, whether or not you agree with me about that, you can surely grasp that, as a political matter, Donald Trump is a spent force?

 

Yesterday’s New York Times poll sent shockwaves through the political world. It found that President Biden’s approval rating is at 33 percent; that “more than two-thirds of independents also now disapprove of the president’s performance”; that “more than three-quarters of registered voters see the United States moving in the wrong direction”; that “only 13 percent of American voters said the nation was on the right track”; and that “94 percent of Democrats under the age of 30 said they would prefer a different presidential nominee.” This is disastrous.

 

And yet:

 

One glimmer of good news for Mr. Biden is that the survey showed him with a narrow edge in a hypothetical rematch in 2024 with former President Donald J. Trump: 44 percent to 41 percent.

 

That’s right. Joe Biden is on political death row. And yet, in the same poll that has delivered his death warrant, he still beats Donald Trump in a head-to-head matchup. If Republican primary voters look at this information and decide to nominate Trump again anyway, they will have nobody to blame for the consequences but themselves.