If it’s MONDAY… President Biden, at the White House, meets with the three Tennessee Dem lawmakers who protested for gun control… Biden set to tap Julie Chavez Rodriguez as 2024 campaign manager, NBC’s Jon Allen confirms… GOP N.H. Gov. Chris Sununu says he’ll have a decision on entering ’24 race before July 4… Florida Gov Ron DeSantis in Japan: “I’m not a candidate, so we’ll see if and when that changes”… And Republican presidential candidates tout their conservative credentials at Iowa cattle call.
But FIRST... Our latest national NBC News poll finds plenty of rough numbers for President Biden ahead of his expected re-election announcement this week.
Biden’s overall job-approval rating has dropped to 41% among all adults, and it’s 30% among independents.
Just 38% approve of the president’s handling of the economy.
He trails a generic Republican by 6 points among registered voters, with 41% saying they’d definitely or probably vote for Biden, versus 47% who say they’d vote for the GOP candidate. (This poll didn’t test head-to-head matchups, but our future surveys will.)
And maybe roughest of all for the president, 70% of all Americans — including 51% of Democrats — don’t want Biden to run for president in 2024, with nearly half of these respondents citing his age as a major reason.
That’s the bad news for Biden in our poll. The good news for him is that he remains more popular than Donald Trump.
Thirty-eight percent of Americans view Biden in a positive light, while 48% have a negative impression of the president (-10 net rating).
That’s compared with Trump’s 34% positive, 53% negative score (-19).
So Biden’s saving grace could be if voters judge him not against the Almighty, but against the alternative, as the president likes to say.
And at this very early juncture of the 2024 GOP presidential race, Trump is the clear frontrunner to be that alternative, with nearly 70% of GOP primary voters standing behind the former president, despite his recent arrest and the other investigations he’s facing.
Data Download: The number of the day is … 5%
That’s the share of Americans who want BOTH President Biden and former President Trump to run for the White House again in 2024, per the latest national NBC News poll.
Thirty-eight percent say they want neither man to run for president again, 28% say they want Trump to run but not Biden, and 20% want Biden but not Trump.
And look at these other percentages of Americans who don’t want either Biden or Trump to run in 2024:
- 58% of Democrats who supported either Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren in 2020
- 51% of those ages 18-34
- 49% of women ages 18-49
- 48% of moderates
(With Trump displaying more command of his political base, the characteristics of those who don’t want either man to run lean more Democratic.)
But it’s worth noting that even though some major Democratic-leaning groups don’t want Biden to run, they’ll support him if he does. For example, an almost-unanimous 96% of Sanders/Warren voters say they’d vote for Biden in the general election if he’s the Democratic nominee.
Other numbers to know
23: The number of days until 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments regarding access to medication abortion pills.
36.2 million: The number of visitors to Disney’s Florida parks in 2021, a number “Meet the Press” highlighted amid Florida GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis’ feud with the company.
8: The number of charges unveiled Friday against a Texas man who allegedly threatened to kill Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., last year.
$1 billion: The value of a fraud case against Guo Wengui, a Chinese billionaire and associate of Steve Bannon, who was denied bail on Thursday.
2: The number of Anheuser-Busch executives who were put on leave after an uproar in conservative media about a promotion with a transgender activist earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal reports.
2: The number of people — a former Trump official and Georgia GOP Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green — Hunter Biden’s legal team wants investigated amid their new public posture as Republicans criticize the president’s son.
Headline of the day
Eyes on 2024: GOP hopefuls make their pitches to Iowa faithful
Several current and potential presidential candidates headed to Iowa over the weekend for the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition’s spring kickoff. They made their pitches to evangelical voters by focusing on social issues such as abortion and limiting transgender rights, NBC News’ Allan Smith, Ali Vitali and Emily Gold report from the Hawkeye State.
FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane
FOR SUBSCRIBERSThe debate over AI’s future rages on both coasts
Former President Donald Trump only appeared via a video, but Smith writes that Trump spoke extensively on abortion, calling himself “the most pro-life president in American history,” despite a recent spat between Trump and activists over his calls for the issue to be decided in the states.
FOR SUBSCRIBERSA harrowing ordeal aboard an Israel-bound plane
FOR SUBSCRIBERSThe debate over AI’s future rages on both coasts
Abortion provided former Vice President Mike Pence with an opening to draw a contrast with his former boss, telling reporters that he does “not agree with the former president who says this is a ‘states only’ issue,” and expressing support for a 15-week abortion ban.
Pence also told Vitali and Gold that any “serious” candidate needs to announce by June. Asked if there’s a chance he might not run, Pence demurred, saying “I promise when we have anything to announce, I’ll let you know, but I will tell you: we’re getting a tremendous amount of encouragement.”
Other potential contenders also attended the confab. Former Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas, told Insider as he weighs a run that he was in the Hawkeye State “to see if Iowa agrees that we’re better together.” Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who recently announced a presidential exploratory committee, was also in Iowa for the event. Asked about Friday’s Supreme Court ruling allowing an abortion pill to remain available, Scott said, “I have confidence in our judiciary. We’ll let it play out.”
In other campaign news…
Top job: President Joe Biden is expected to tap Julie Chavez Rodriguez, a senior adviser to the president and the director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, to manage his re-election campaign, NBC News’ Jonathan Allen reports. Her grandfather is the late labor organizer Cesar Chavez.
The endorsement race: Trump has continued to rack up endorsements from state officials and members of Congress, leveraging relationships from his past runs for president, NBC News’ Henry J. Gomez, Jonathan Allen and Matt Dixon report. But members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus, who were some of Trump’s top allies during his presidency, have not yet weighed in on the presidential race, per NBC News’ Allan Smith and Scott Wong.
PAC play: Never Back Down, a super PAC backing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ expected presidential bid, reserved $3.1 million in airtime in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina, per AdImpact. The group launched a minute-long ad detailing DeSantis’ bio. And former Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt, a Trump ally, is joining the PAC (Laxalt and DeSantis are also close — they were roommates during naval officer training).
DeSantis in Utah: DeSantis traveled to Utah over the weekend to address the state GOP convention, where he also easily won the straw poll of nearly 1,200 delegates with 55% of the vote, per the Deseret News.
GOP goes global: DeSantis is traveling internationally this week, sitting down with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida on Monday. DeSantis is also traveling to Israel, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday he would meet with the Florida governor. Virginia GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin is also traveling to Taiwan, Japan and South Korea to discuss trade, per NBC News’ Gary Grumbach.
Mountaineer Justice: Politico reports that West Virginia Republican Gov. Jim Justice is slated to announce his Senate bid this Thursday. Meanwhile, the Duty and Honor non-profit affiliated with the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC booked more than $1 million in ads in the state (per AdImpact), launching a new spot praising Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin as “our commonsense senator.”
A Civil War debate — sort of: Fox News reports that Ohio Republican businessman Bernie Moreno, who is running for Senate, questioned why descendants of white Civil War soldiers aren’t getting reparations for fighting to free the slaves. Moreno’s campaign told Fox he was making a point about “Democrat hypocrisy.”
Tar Heel tussle: North Carolina Republican Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson jumped into the gubernatorial race over the weekend in a long-awaited announcement that has some Republicans worrying the controversial politician might cost them a winnable race, per Politico.
“A blessing and a curse”: The Associated Press looks at how Michigan Democratic Rep. Elissa Slotkin’s Senate bid leaves her party in a tough spot defending one of the tightest House districts in the country.
Let the states, and not us, decide: CNN reports on how House Republicans are, by-and-large, not embracing the push to pass a federal abortion ban as the issue continues to be a problem for their party politically.
The concrete jungle where majorities are made of: Politico reports on how New York will again be a central battleground in the fight for the House majority.
ICYMI: What ELSE is happening in the world:
U.S. forces evacuated the U.S. embassy in Sudan amid heavy fighting in the nation’s capital and around the country.
Ukraine’s leaders plan to convene with other Western leaders on Friday to discuss the country’s pathway to victory in their war against Russia.
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg and House Republicans resolved their dispute over former prosecutor Mark Pomerantz, allowing him to sit for a deposition in front of the committee.
