Peter Schorsch
President Joe Biden’s overall approval ratings aren’t setting records, but a new poll released ahead of his Thursday swing through Tampa shows he’s still popular among the party faithful.
That’s according to a new poll released by Floridians for Economic Advancement, which found that 85% of likely Democratic Primary voters nationwide approve of the job Biden has done through two years in office. Just 14% told pollster Alvarado Strategies that the Commander in Chief is coming up short.
Democrats are likewise optimistic about the direction of the country — 56% said they thought the United States was heading in the “right direction” compared to 35% who believe it is on the “wrong track.” Fence-sitters accounted for the other 9%.
Biden’s visit to the Big Guava comes amid a growing will-he-won’t-he — or, more recently, should-he-shouldn’t-he — conversation on whether the octogenarian Democrat potential re-election bid.
Floridians for Economic Advancement did not ask the question outright, but it did measure whether likely Primary voters think he could win. A full two-thirds are believers while about one in eight said he’d become the 12th one-term President in American history. Another 22% were unsure.
Whether he runs for re-election or not, most Democrats see Biden in a favorable light. He scored a plus-76 overall with 87% saying they had an at least “somewhat favorable” view of him, including 52% who answered “strongly favorable.”
A mere 11% have a negative view of the President, including 5% who find him “strongly unfavorable.” Curiously, 1% of Democrats said they had never heard of Biden even though he has been in national office 46 of the past 50 years — about a decade longer than the median U.S. citizen has been alive.
Of the five other Democrats included in the favorability test, the only one that bested Biden is former President Barack Obama, a total non-threat in the 2024 Democratic Primary thanks to presidential term limits.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who is expected to defer if Biden runs again, landed at No. 3 with a plus-67 rating. U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, a similarly unlikely 2024 challenger, followed with a plus-62.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom was significantly behind at plus-42. The comparatively lukewarm numbers were more attributable to ambivalence and ignorance than acrimony, however, with nearly three in 10 respondents saying they were either unaware of the 55-year-old Democrat or hadn’t developed an opinion.
Though Newsom reportedly told the White House he would forgo a 2024 bid if Biden runs, he was the only Democrat that the pollster placed in a potential head-to-head with the incumbent.
The result: A 66%-19% win for Biden with 15% of Florida Democrats unsure.
Alvarado Strategies conducted the poll Jan. 31-Feb. 3. It has a sample size of 1,078 likely Democratic Primary voters. Women accounted for 60% of respondents and men accounted for 40%. By race, the sample was 58% White, 14% Black and 11% Hispanic. The margin of error was not disclosed.
Floridians for Economic Advancement Poll by Andrew Wilson on Scribd
One comment
Mac Wiseman
February 11, 2023 at 1:56 pm
Wealthy white Democrats are lining up for Biden in 2024 as a means to increase our current out of controll inflation even higher. Higher inflation wont even have an effect on wealthy white Democrats. But it will have their desired effect of descimating the unloyal Black and Hispanic communities who have been voting Republican in a majority fashon. Those communities must be punished in the eye of wealthy white Democrats. There is a common belief among wealthy white woke Democrats that they can rule the planet with only the support of the queer, trans, woke vote.
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