The Nomination Race: Biden and Trump Pulling for One Another

After all, both candidates would like to run against a historically unpopular opponent.

The much maligned and passionately non-partisan public interest group, No Labels, knows what the political parties also know but do not want the average American voter to know, or, at least, not to think about too much.

The Dems and GOP are about to nominate the two candidates with the consistently lowest approval ratings in the history of modern polling for the highest office in the land. And, most importantly, they don’t want you to dwell on that too much, if at all.

But it is true. A compelling review of statistical data from the nation’s most respected polling firms, aggregated and presented by the gurus of polling at Five Thirty Eight, tells a troubling story. Americans are being set up to vote for the two most low-approval political personalities since Herbert Hoover.

President Biden has a low approval rating primarily because he is showing his age. His movements and speech are halting and sometimes troubling; there is no hiding it. And the more he tries, the more evident it becomes. And, of course, his son Hunter has become an albatross with which his candidacy must contend. That’s unfortunate for him. Notwithstanding the embarrassment his son, Hunter, has caused him, he has accomplished more than he is given credit for. By any objective standard, he has had a very credible presidency.

Trump is unpopular with almost everyone outside of his MAGA base primarily because he is the most unpresidential, dishonest, and self-serving candidate in American history and, need I say it, the most (and only) criminally indicted candidate. That said, I’ll hasten to add his Presidency is not without its important positive accomplishments.

Nonetheless, in the 48 months of his Presidency, Donald Trump never achieved a 50% approval rating in these top-rated polls. Not once. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. He never received a majority of the popular vote in his two presidential runs either. It is astounding that the Republican Party is so determined (if not intimidated) to stick with such a popular-vote loser. Hillary Clinton beat him by nearly three million popular votes in 2016, and Joe Biden beat him by seven million popular votes in 2020.

His inability to accept or recognize his chronic popular-vote loser status is unprecedented in American politics. While he beat Hillary Clinton in the electoral college, he claimed, without the remotest substantiation, that illegal votes gave Clinton the popular vote (sound familiar). His inability to accept that he is unpopular with most American voters suggests an inherent personality weakness his bravado can’t camouflage. It is troubling and probably, even dangerous.  

Donald Trump began his Presidency in 2017 with less than a 50% approval rating on day one and spent all 48 months of his Presidency thereafter less popular than he was on his first day in office. Biden, however, hasn’t done much better. According to multiple polling data, Biden remained barely above water (positive approval) for about 215 days into his Presidency, then slipped into negative (disapproval) territory, and has remained there ever since.

Looking over polling data for every President since Harry Truman, no one has done as poorly as candidates Trump and Biden. Yet these are the two choices the Democrats and Republicans are locked into, insist we accept, and viciously denigrate any suggestion that the country consider any other options, such as a unity ticket that No Labels strives to offer.

Not for one day of his Presidency has Joe Biden bested even the lowest approval rating of Barack Obama, for whom he served as Vice President. The George W. Bush presidency ran circles around President Biden’s Presidency, with high approval ratings (above 50%) until his last year in office.

Bill Clinton, whose first term was somewhat of a roller coaster, enjoyed periods above 50% approval each year of his first four years in office. Bush 41 was remarkably popular until his last year in office, and Ronald Reagan’s first and fourth years of his first term were solidly above water.

Gerald Ford’s Presidency, which in terms of time served in office is roughly the same as the time President Biden has been in office thus far, had an approval rating approximately the same as President Biden’s, uniformly below 50%.

Democrat John Kennedy and Republican Dwight Eisenhower have been the most popular presidents in the past 80 years. Without belaboring the point, the two presidents with the lowest favorability ratings during their time in office, going back to Harry Truman, are Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Yet, party pros become apoplectic when anyone has the temerity to suggest any consideration of alternatives to either Biden or Trump.

Well, here’s a reality we need to ponder. Young voters have been abandoning the two major parties in droves. So much so that about half the electorate now register as Independent today. In other words, Independents are about the size of our two traditional parties combined. Historically, most so-called Independent voters typically leaned toward and thus voted for either Democrats or Republicans. They were reliably called “leaners” in the polling world.

But here’s the thing. Today, Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) and so-called Gen Z (those born between 1965 and 1980) tend to be among the most ardently independent voters, and, according to the Harvard Institute of Politics, young voters dislike both Trump and Biden. Small wonder, then, that in a recent poll by the Institute, President Biden’s approval rating was under 40%.

In the past, Independents invariably leaned, election after election, toward the Party they felt most comfortable with. While they registered as “Independent,” the political pros pretty much knew how they would vote. Today, that’s far less certain because both parties are about to nominate candidates with historically low approval ratings.

An attractive alternative giving former President Trump and President Biden, both of whom sport historically and consistently low approval ratings, a real run for the money may not be as farfetched as many assume.

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 Recent podcasts have featured my commentary on the Trump Indictments, the Fox Corp Settlement, The CNN Trump Town Hall, the Hunter Biden plea deal, The New American Cult of Personality, and my interviews with:

William Bratton, Retired Chief of Police, New York City, Los Angeles, and Boston

Rikki Klieman, Attorney, Network News Analyst, and best-selling author

John Thoresen, Executive Director, Barbara Sinatra Children’s Center

Katherine Gehl, co-author of The Politics Industry and founder of the Institute for Political Innovation

Jazz artist Ann Hampton Callaway

Outlander author Diana Gabaldon

AI Data Scientist Lawrence Kite

Ryan Clancy, Chief Strategist of No Labels

Senator Barbara Boxer

Senator Joe Lieberman

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan

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