Biden Begins 2024 With Better Poll Numbers Than His Foes—and Fans—Recognize

Biden’s been running for the presidency since, at least, the mid-1980s, and his poll numbers have rarely been great. His strength has never been his popular appeal. It’s been the notion that he is an experienced hand who can do the job. Sometimes that hasn’t been enough to win, as in his 1988 and 2008 bids for the Democratic presidential nomination—although the 2008 run did yield an invitation to run on Barack Obama’s ticket and ultimately the vice presidency. And in the chaotic presidential election year of 2020, it was enough to finally secure his party’s nomination and the presidency.

On the way to his 2020 victory, Biden’s polls were seldom inspiring. He trailed during most of the primary race, and even toward the end of the fall competition, there were polls that put him up only by a point or so. Surveys from the battleground states, while generally favorable to the Democrat, were all over the place when it came to the size of the split between the candidates. Ultimately, Biden won 51.3 percent of the popular vote nationally, leading Trump by more than 7 million ballots. Biden carried the Electoral College—after many state-based challenges, recounts, court battles, and an insurrection—by a comfortable 306-232 margin.

If Biden gets his disjointed reelection campaign together and starts to deliver a coherent and consistent message, it’s a good bet that 2024 will turn out similarly or, perhaps, even better for Democrats than 2020. Biden’s message will focus on Trump’s many scandals and the increasingly authoritarian rhetoric of his desperate candidacy. But what may be president’s greatest strength going into the 2024 race was summed up by Steven Rattner in an end-of-2023 New York Times opinion piece that used multiple charts to convey the point that the US economy “beat the odds in 2023, coming in with far lower unemployment, far higher growth, and far better stock performance than projected.”

The economy is not, by a long shot, the only issue that will matter in 2024. Abortion rights concerns will undoubtedly turn out voters who favor Biden. By the same token, the president’s flawed response to the Israel-Palestine conflict, and especially to the Israeli assault on Gaza, could depress enthusiasm among young voters and Muslim Americans in swing states such as Michigan. And even if the economy were the only issue, Biden’s approach still leaves plenty to be desired in the eyes of many voters.

But as veteran pollster and commentator Cornell Belcher said after reviewing Rattner’s upbeat assessment of the numbers, “Maybe, just maybe, Democrats should say this over and over and over again to voters at every turn and on every platform—kinda like a coordinated message or something, while taking credit for it.”

If the president and his partisan allies take that advice and the economy remains strong, there’s a compelling case Biden’s polling position will improve as the 2024 race unfolds.