Barack Obama remains fairly popular among Democrats, yet his presidency was quite devastating for his party. Over his two terms, the Democratic Party lost 13 governorships and 816 state legislative seats—the worst record since President Dwight Eisenhower. He came into office with a 60-seat majority in the Senate and 257-seat majority in the House. By the time he left office, his party had lost 12 Senate seats and 64 House seats. And yet, Joe Biden may end up doing more damage to the Democrats than Barack Obama did.
Here’s how.
First of all, a new poll from the New York Times and Siena College is the latest to show that Donald Trump is beating Joe Biden is most of the battleground states that will decide the 2024 election. According to the poll, Trump is up ten points in Nevada, six points in Georgia, five points in Arizona, five points in Michigan, and four points in Pennsylvania. Biden has a slight lead in Wisconsin of two points. Assuming these numbers pan out, and all other states remain the same as in 2020, Trump would win in a landslide, 301 Electoral College votes to Biden’s 237.
And yet, that may not be the worst news for Joe Biden and the Democrats.
"Not only are these a brutal set of topline numbers for the president, but they show the Democratic coalition completely falling apart,” explains Patrick Ruffini, pollster for Echelon Insights. The poll also shows that Trump and Biden are within single digits with Hispanic voters, and Trump gets a stunning 22% of the black vote.
How is this possible? It’s the economy that is driving these once reliably Democrat-voting demographics away from Biden and to Trump. The poll found that a significant number of voters believe that Biden's policies have harmed them personally, while they credit former President Trump's policies for helping them. Trump enjoys a substantial lead over Biden in terms of economic trust, with 59% of voters favoring him compared to 37% for Biden. Additionally, twice as many voters prioritize economic issues over social issues when casting their votes, and Trump leads among these voters by a 60% to 32% margin.
The NYT/Sienna poll was run by Nate Cohn, who was the most accurate pollster in the country in 2022.
"If this is not a bright red warning sign for Democrats that Republicans have swiped a critical mass of nonwhite working class voters from under their feet, I’m not sure what would be,” observes Ruffini.
In his forthcoming book, Ruffini predicts that this may not be a one-off exclusive to Trump when he is on the ballot, either. For starters, the advantage Trump gets with these groups extends to his Republican primary opponents. "Even if these shifts were to only partly materialize in November 2024, they would signal a lasting realignment poised to upend the party system we’ve known since Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal,” he wrote.
Democrats have long relied on the loyalty of the minority vote and the youth vote to win elections, and even a modest shift in support from these demographics could make the difference in battleground states decided by mere thousands of votes.
Obama’s presidency may have lost Democrats power in Congress and state legislatures, but such trends tend to swing back and forth. Joe Biden’s disastrous presidency appears to be eroding the Democrats' base, and could have an impact on national elections for generations.
