It seems like every news outlet has a story up today about what a complete failure Gov. DeSantis’ Twitter announcement was yesterday. It feels like a bit of desperation to me. I listened to the announcement and DeSantis did fine. But then this has been the media’s consistent pattern with DeSantis since 2020. Anything he does, whatever it is, is immediately deemed a failure. We all remember when these same geniuses proclaimed his response to COVID dangerous and irresponsible even as they were praising Gov. Cuomo for doing such a great job. None of that looks very good in retrospect which is why the media never brings is up.

You have to assume that some of the desperation to damage DeSantis and brand him a failure has to do with a desire to even things up a bit for his Democratic opponent. Because it turns out a lot of people don’t have positive feelings about President Biden headed into this election. A new CNN poll has some bad news.

Just a third of Americans say that Biden winning in 2024 would be a step forward or a triumph for the country (33%). At the same time, the survey finds a decline in favorable views of Biden over the past six months, from 42% in December to 35% now. And results from the same poll released earlier this week showed Biden’s approval rating for handling the presidency at 40%, among the lowest for any first-term president since Dwight Eisenhower at this point in their term.

Within his own party, 60% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters say they back Biden for the top of next year’s Democratic ticket, 20% favor activist and lawyer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and 8% back author Marianne Williamson. Another 8% say they would support an unnamed “someone else.”

Biden’s support among Democrats isn’t very good but it’s much better than his support from Independents.

Biden’s weak spots in the race for the nomination are concentrated among independents who lean Democratic (40% back Biden for the nod, compared with 67% among self-identified Democrats) and younger voters (49% of those younger than 45 say they back Biden compared with 68% among those age 45 or older).

Overall, the country is not enthusiastic about four more years of Joe Biden.

Two-thirds (66%) of all Americans say a Biden victory would either be a setback or a disaster for the country. The leading contender for the Republican nomination, former president Donald Trump, fares slightly better (43% say a Trump win would be a triumph or a step forward, 56% a disaster or a setback), though the two are about even in the share who say each of them winning would be a disaster (44% say so about Trump, while 41% say the same about Biden). And among independents, 45% say a Trump win would be a disaster while 35% say a Biden win would be.

I’m not sure Biden can win this regardless of who he is running against. He’s looking like a pretty weak candidate right now. The big issue, of course, is his age. Quinnipiac published a poll yesterday which made this clear.

Registered voters 65 – 32 percent think that Joe Biden is too old to effectively serve another 4-year term as president. Republicans (90 – 8 percent) and independents (69 – 28 percent) think that Biden is too old, while Democrats 57 – 41 percent think that Biden is not too old to effectively serve another 4-year term as president.

So a majority of Democrats (57%) believe he’s not too old but they say that knowing he’s already running for president and will be the nominee. What would they be saying if they had another real candidate in the race? What would they say if they were honest?

In any case, it remains to be seen how young Biden will seem to everyone after another 17 months of hard campaigning. My own feeling is that the more he talks the clearer it will be that he’s too old for this. Democrats were able to keep him under wraps in 2020 thanks to COVID which gave him an excuse to campaign from his basement. They won’t have that excuse next year.

Here’s CNN’s coverage of the new poll. Jake Tapper accurately called this “horrible news” for Joe Biden.

"Horrible news, horrible for Joe Biden": New CNN poll finds 66% of Americans say a Biden victory would either be a "setback" or a "disaster" pic.twitter.com/wgXuNRvWxW

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 25, 2023