Nearly 60% of Democrats and nearly 50% of Republicans want someone other than Joe Biden or Donald Trump to be their party's nominee for president in 2024, a new poll showed on Sunday.
A key member of Biden's cabinet, however, insisted that Biden's record in office was more important than any generational argument for change.
The poll by the Washington Post and ABC News released two days before Biden's State of the Union address showed that 62% of Americans would be discontented or angry if Biden was re-elected in two years time, while 56% said he would return to the role he lost in 2020.
A third of the respondents said they would be enthusiastic or satisfied if Biden were elected, but not enthusiastic. That total was 43% for Trump.
Pete Buttigieg, Biden's secretary of transportation, appeared on CNN's State of the Union.
Asked if he thought arguments for generational change, such as he advanced in his presidential run two years ago, might be gaining strength, the 41-year-old said: Generational arguments can be powerful but the most powerful argument is results.
I would say that you can't argue with a straight face that it isn't a good thing that we have had 12 million jobs created under this president. By the way, a lot of the jobs are in manufacturing.
As a child who grew up in the industrial midwest, it has been so moving to see hundreds of thousands of good-paying manufacturing jobs being created, including rural areas, small towns in places like Tennessee and Louisiana, Georgia and Indiana, the kind of growth that benefits the entire American people. In 2020 a presidential election between Biden and Trump was fought in the shadow of Covid 19 but produced a huge turnout, Biden won more than 81 m votes and more than 74 m for Trump.
Trump tried to overturn his defeat, leading to the deadly Capitol riot and a second impeachment for inciting the insurrection, in order to hide his lie about voter fraud.
Trump is the only candidate for the GOP nomination in two years, after a majority of Republicans stayed loyal. Biden has said he intends to run, but he hasn't officially declared his candidacy.
Biden would be 82 when he was inaugurated for a second term and 86 by the end of his time in office, despite the fact that he was the oldest president to be inaugurated for the first time. Trump would be 77 on his return to the White House.
Biden's first chief of staff gave a hint that Biden will run after leaving the White House this week.
As I did in 1988, 2008 and 2020, I look forward to being on your side when you run for president in 2024, Ron Klain said, prompting applause from staff and a smile from Biden.
Buttigieg said when you look at what America was up against when President Biden took office, and what has been delivered just in these first two years of this administration, I think those results are going to continue to accumulate.
People will toss whatever argument they can into the mix that they think will benefit them the most. At the end of the day you can't argue with the extraordinary accomplishments that President Biden has achieved, more than almost any other modern president. According to the Post-ABC poll, a 2024 match-up between Biden and Trump would land 48% -- 45% in Biden's favor: A gap within the poll's margin of error