President Joe Biden vowed a big change from how Donald Trump handled the job – and he promised to unite the nation.
Now, that promise may be coming true in a way he never expected as Americans unite against him and his approval ratings drop to precisely where Trump was at the same point in his presidency.
Exactly 393 days into his term, Trump’s approval rating hit 41.4 percent, according to the FiveThirtyEight.com average.
Exactly 393 days into Biden’s administration, he’s in the same position: 41.4 percent.
“I’m hard pressed to think of a single thing he has done that benefits the country,” one respondent said in a CNN survey released last week.
On the disapproval side, it’s the same story: On day 393, Trump’s disapproval was 53.1 percent, while Biden’s is at 53 percent.
There is one difference between the two.
Trump’s numbers stabilized, as he never lost the support of his base.
Biden, on the other hand, is in a free fall as he’s abandoned in every direction.
“It isn’t just GOP voters who oppose him; it’s also most independents,” columnist Joe Concha wrote for The Hill. “But what should be most alarming to Democrats is the erosion of support among Black voters, who are increasingly feeling buyer’s remorse on Biden.”
While he won with 90 percent support among the Black community in 2020, the latest numbers show just 69 percent now support him.
The reason for Biden’s plunging approval among all demographics is simple: Americans are struggling with a year of out-of-control inflation, a still-raging pandemic and a coast-to-coast crime wave that has people living in fear.
He also has another disadvantage: History.
“No president, not one has substantially increased, raised his job approval rating between February of his midterm year and the actual election,” Byron York, chief political correspondent of the Washington Examiner, said this week on the Guy Benson radio show.
There are even bigger warnings not just for Biden, but for the Democratic Party on the whole.
As of today, just 28.1 percent of Americans believe the country is going in the right direction, compared to 64.4 percent who believe it’s on the wrong track.
Both numbers are worse than anything during the Trump administration prior to the start of the pandemic, and lead to what may be the biggest canary in the coal mine for any hopes the Democrats may have for retaining the majority after November’s midterm election.
That’s what’s known as the “generic ballot,” in which voters aren’t asked about a specific candidate.
They’re asked only whether they intend to vote for a Democrat or a Republican.
Republicans now lead on that question by 3.4 percent, according to RealClearPolitics.
One recent poll by Monmouth University even gives the GOP an eight-point advantage on the generic ballots.
That, combined with a track record in which the party of a first-term president often loses House seats during his first midterm, could add up to a shellacking at the polls for Democrats in November.
And it’s why many Democrats are fleeing the sinking ship rather than face the voters for what’s likely to be a humbling election.
Just last week, Kathleen Rice, D-N.Y., became the 30th Democrat to announce retirement from Congress.
Her Long Island district may be more competitive than usual this year, in the event of a red wave.
Now, the advantage may go to the GOP.
The party needs just five seats to retake control over the majority — which in turn could doom the rest of the Biden agenda in Washington for the remainder of his term.
That’s a bad Presidents’ Day for Biden and his allies.
The Horn editorial team