Georgetown Poll: Dems Doubt Biden Ability to Lead Party to Victory

Voter frustration and a growing sense the country is headed in the wrong direction has Democrats doubting President Joe Biden can lead the party to victory in 2024, a new poll showed.

Georgetown University's October "Battleground and Civility Poll" found 63% of voters believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, up from 56% in June, and Biden's approval rating has dropped to 45%, down from 53% in June.

Both parties in Congress have also seen a decline: Democrats garnered 39% approval, Republicans 27%, the poll found. It also showed 66% of voters believe the economy will be worse off for the next generation.

"People are upset; people are frustrated," Democrat pollster Celinda Lake said of the results, the Washington Examiner reported. "Voters see things getting worse."

Lake, a campaign pollster for Biden, collaborated with Republican pollster Ed Goeas for the survey.

According to the survey, conducted Oct. 16-21, just 28% of voters believe the country is headed in the right direction, with 12% who firmly believe this, while 63% said the country is on the wrong track, including a 51% majority who strongly feel this way.

The Georgetown poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

"Americans are dejected about the way things are going in the country," Lake wrote in her report of the survey.

But what might be most troublesome for Biden is his support eroding with Democrat voters.

In the June battleground poll, 94% of Democrats gave Biden a positive rating on his job performance, while only 2% of the party rated the president poorly. In October, Biden's job approval with Democrats fell to 84%, with 14% disapproving in his party.

Goeas said voters are looking for the president to meet his campaign pledges, the Washington Examiner reported — and want solutions, "not ideology" amid Biden facing a Democrat caucus divided internally between liberal and centrist lawmakers.

"Americans are bent out of shape," Democrat political consultant Brad Bannon told the Washington Examiner, adding, though "the question is what the numbers are going to be a year from now."

"Public opinion right now is down on Joe Biden. But the rubber doesn't start to meet the road for another year in the midterms," he added. "And another couple years for the next presidential race. What happens between now and then?"

A plurality of Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents favor replacing Biden at the top of the presidential ticket in 2024, according to a Marist poll released Monday.

• NBC Poll: Biden Approval Sinks to 42 Percent; 'Instability, Chaos'
• Gallup: Biden's 11-Point Approval Drop Most of Any President Since WWII