President Joe Biden’s team has insisted he’s fit for office, claimed he’s the only candidate who can beat former president Donald Trump, and pointed to his economic record as proof he deserves reelection. A new ABC News/Washington Post poll released Sunday shows the American public overwhelmingly disagrees.
Biden has a record-low 36 percent approval rating, the poll found. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said Biden is too old to run again.
"This poll is just brutal for President Biden," ABC's George Stephanopoulos said this weekend.
Trump faces less concern about his age, with 44 percent saying he's too old to run.
The respondents also ripped Biden for his handling of the economy. Fifty-four percent to 36 percent, Americans think Trump did a better job with the economy.
The early polling is not a good sign for the Biden campaign in a matchup with the former president, ABC News reported:
Looking (far) ahead to November 2024, in a Biden-Trump matchup, 44% of Americans say they'd definitely or probably vote for Trump, 38% for Biden, with 12% undecided. When the undecideds are asked how they lean, it's 49-42%, Trump-Biden.
The poll numbers come after the Post interviewed Democrats who said the president's frequent verbal slip-ups and physical stumbles have given them pause about whether he should run.
Biden faces the lowest support from within his own party for a second term among modern presidents. Just 38 percent of Democrats said the party should nominate Biden for reelection, compared with 57 percent who want to find another candidate, according to an average of polls conducted throughout his first term published by the Post last month.
Trump had 70 percent of his party’s support for a reelection bid.