New poll shows Biden’s 2024 primary problems aren’t just abstract

Now comes Biden’s turn for grim news out of the Granite State.

In recent weeks, we’ve seen several polls suggest a historically large number of Democrats would prefer someone other than Biden as their 2024 nominee. A valid question from there is: But whom?

People like hypothetical “other” options they’re invited to idealize. But that can be more attractive in the abstract than the real world.

It turns out, though, Biden doesn’t just struggle against shadows; he also struggles against actual opponents.

Remarkably, the latest University of New Hampshire poll shows that, like Trump, Biden is in a virtual first-place tie in the state — in this case with Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who is pulling 17 percent to Biden’s 16 percent. That’s just 1 in 6 voters choosing the incumbent president.

Here’s the breakdown of the crowded theoretical Democratic field:

• Buttigieg: 17 percent
• Biden: 16 percent
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.): 10 percent
• Gov. Gavin Newsom (Calif.): 10 percent
• Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.): 9 percent
• Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vermont): 8 percent

This might even undersell how bad the poll is for Biden: The poll also asked about people’s second choice, and Biden was that for just 2 percent of voters. So, for 4 in 5 New Hampshire Democrats, Biden isn’t even the first or second choice.

That’s significantly less than Buttigieg, who leads the pack as second choice with 13 percent, giving him a combined 3 in 10 voters naming him their first or second choice.

It also suggests Biden is on the table for about as many voters as Warren (10 percent first choice, 8 percent second choice), Sanders (8 percent and 11 percent) and Newsom (10 percent and 5 percent). And his combined first and second choice numbers are only modestly higher than plenty of others, including Klobuchar, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams.

Biden’s image rating among Democrats is also just 19 points more positive than negative — worse than all of politicians above except Ocasio-Cortez.

It’s, again, valid to ask how applicable this is to what lies ahead. It’s one poll in one state — albeit one that hosts a very important early primary that often sets the tone for the rest of the election year. It also seems, well, quite unlikely that Biden will wind up running again in such a crowded field: Almost every person on this list has said they would support him if he ran again. Even in the rare occasions in which presidents face primary challenges, it’s usually more of a head-to-head race. A crowded field would almost definitely result from Biden opting not to seek reelection in the first place.

So what about that narrower hypothetical race? There, the signs are perhaps a bit better for Biden, but certainly far too close for the usual level of comfort for an incumbent president.

A Yahoo/YouGov poll last month matched Biden up against Newsom, and it showed Biden at 37 percent and Newsom at 17 percent. But that seemed to owe in large part to Newsom’s relative anonymity; in another matchup against the vice president, Kamala D. Harris, the margin was closer: 27-19.

The latter matchup isn’t going to happen, of course. But it’s instructive, in that it pits Biden against someone who most everyone has at least heard of. And Biden holds only a small lead despite Harris also being a pretty unpopular politician. (That’s reflected in the fact that she is not even mentioned above in our discussion of the New Hampshire poll. She was the first choice of just 6 percent and the second choice of just 4 percent.)

That also drives home just how much Democratic voters seem to be prepared to turn the page. While Biden was the first or second choice of just 1 in 5 voters in the New Hampshire poll, his VP was the first or second choice of just 1 in 10. These are pretty unheard-of numbers for an incumbent president and vice president.

Regrettably, we don’t have other good polling on a narrower Democratic primary field that might include Biden and maybe one or two other candidates. (We would suggest to any pollsters out there that a head-to-head with Buttigieg or the well-known Sanders would be most telling.) It’s also possible Biden’s fortunes improve and Democrats warm to renominating him over the next year, when he’ll have to make a final call on seeking reelection — as he has assured he’s preparing to do. It’s very early, which is why we don’t have much polling.

But the polling we do have points in a clear direction when it comes to Biden’s decision: Running again would risk losing renomination; it’s not just that people say they prefer an ideal, unnamed alternative.

It also seems New Hampshire, long determined to assert itself in presidential nominating contests in an often contrarian fashion, is rearing its head rather early this time around.