Political analyst Mark Halperin and pollster Jim McLaughlin told Newsmax on Friday that Democrats are in a panic regarding President Joe Biden's reelection chances, especially given his recent polling numbers on job performance overall and with minority groups such as Hispanics and Blacks that are a huge part of the party's voting base.
A CNN poll released Wednesday showed Biden's job approval rating at 37%, with 63% disapproving, the lowest numbers of his presidency. Blacks (47%) and Hispanics (42%) rated his job performance below 50%.
"It clearly matters to the Democrats because when you look at how they're going crazy — you have folks like David Axelrod, you have other Democrats calling for Joe Biden to basically get out of the race," McLaughlin, co-founder of polling firm McLaughlin & Associates, which is working with former President Donald Trump's 2024 presidential campaign, told "Rob Schmitt Tonight" and guest host Rob Finnerty.
"I think the memo has gone out, and the panic has gone out among Democrats that Joe Biden at this point in time is going to have a real problem trying to beat Donald Trump."
A Siena College/New York Times poll of six key battleground states released last month showed Trump with 22% support of Black voters; he had just 12% of the Black vote in 2020, according to Forbes, and 8% in 2016.
"Democrats would be fine if Joe Biden was a great political athlete," Halperin said. "They'd be fine if they could look at inflation, crime, immigration, foreign policy and Biden's performance and say, You know what? Those are on the right trajectory. We may be behind now, but we'll be on the right trajectory. We know he's going to recover with Black voters. We know he's going to recover Hispanic voters.'
"The reason there's panic in the Democratic Party, the reason they're still trying to change horses at this late date when it's really not feasible is because they don't like the trend lines."
McLaughlin and Halperin agreed Democrats might have a more positive outlook if a polished politician such as Barack Obama or Bill Clinton were facing such low numbers late in their first term.
"If they thought Joe Biden was Barack Obama or Bill Clinton or George [W.] Bush, who could go out and just execute and just be staggeringly aggressive and charming and funny, and with the theory of the case of a comeback, they'd say, OK, yeah, we have a year. We'll figure it out,'" Halperin said. "That's not what they see in their candidate."
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Michael Katz ✉
Michael Katz is a Newsmax reporter with more than 30 years of experience reporting and editing on news, culture, and politics.
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