Exclusive: Joe Biden’s nightmare polling in Michigan

It is a state that Joe Biden won by just 150,000 votes in 2020, and one of the key battlegrounds in the 2024 presidential election.

It is also a state in which the Democrats made a series of gains the last time elections were held in 2022.

But despite the recent successes, Biden could be headed for disaster in Michigan, exclusive polling for Newsweek has shown.

According to the survey of eligible voters in Michigan by Redfield and Wilton Strategies, the president is facing disapproval in the state across a range of issues, from his job performance generally, to his response to the recent United Auto Workers (UAW) strikes.

Biden took the state from his Republican rival and GOP frontrunner Donald Trump in 2020 after Trump flipped it by less than 0.3 percentage points in 2016. Three years on, 49 percent of voters in the Midwestern state disapprove of Biden’s job performance while 35 percent approve, the poll found. This leaves him with a net approval rating of -14 percent.

Michigan is, along with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, one of the so-called “blue wall” states that Biden returned to the Democrats in 2020, helping him to win the White House. A New York Times and Siena College poll on November 5 showed that voters are backing Trump by margins of 4 to 10 percentage points in five of six important battleground states, including Michigan.

One year prior to the 2024 election, the latest Newsweek poll sheds further light on voters’ ill-feeling towards the president.

Biden’s Reaction to Israel at War

The polling, carried out between November 25 and 26 with a sample size of 860, also offered an insight into what voters make of Biden’s response to the war between Israel and Hamas.

On October 7, Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israel, which prompted the Israelis to carry out extensive airstrikes and a ground offensive against the militants in Gaza. As of December 1, more than 13,300 Palestinians have been killed, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled Gaza, per the Associated Press. Some 1,200 Israelis have been killed, the outlet said.

The U.S. has long been an ally of Israel and, following the attack, Biden reiterated Washington’s support. He said that Israel has the right to defend itself, proposing $14 billion in aid and providing weapons.

While this stance has been echoed by other Western countries, representatives from several international organizations including Volker Turk, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, and U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths have called for a ceasefire.

Despite 48 percent of Michigan voters saying they are sympathetic to the Israeli side of the conflict compared with 37 percent who sympathize with the Palestinians, and more voters than not disapproving of Rashida Tlaib, the Michigan Democrat who was censured over for comments about the conflict including calling for a ceasefire, Biden has a -18 percent approval rating about his response to the war. Forty-six percent disapprove and 28 percent approve of his response.

Muslim community leaders from several swing states, including Michigan, pledged to withdraw support for Biden during a conference in Detroit in December because of his refusal to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. Michigan has the highest number of Arab Americans in the country and in 2020, 64 percent of Muslim voters nationally supported Biden, compared with 35 percent who supported Trump, according to Associated Press VoteCast. If Biden loses this key base, Michigan could flip to the Republicans in 2024 once more.

Biden’s Support for UAW Strikes

In September, the UAW declared targeting Ford, General Motors and Stellantis, pushing the three major car companies for better pay and conditions.

During the strike, Biden visited the state and came out in support of the striking workers in what was a first for a sitting president.

He told the picketing workers they “deserve the significant raise you need and other benefits.”

Around the same time, Trump, in a Truth Social post, said that car workers are “toast” if they do not endorse him, held a rally in Detroit, and claimed Biden was only visiting the state because he was.

A majority of Michigan voters, 48 percent, supported the UAW decision to strike, which ended in October after workers secured a deal with General Motors, which included a 25 percent wage increase across a four-and-a-half year deal with cost of living adjustment. But between Biden and Trump, 42 percent believe Trump has provided greater support for auto workers in Michigan, while 39 percent believe Biden has.

Newsweek has contacted the Michigan Democratic Party and the Democratic National Committee by email for comment.

‘The President Is Failing To Resonate’

Thomas Gift, associate professor of political science in the School of Public Policy at University College London, said the poll showed Biden is struggling to resonate with the local electorate, meaning Trump could “make a serious run” at the state.

“Michigan has traditionally been a critical brick in the so-called ‘blue wall’ that’s propelled various Democrats to the White House dating back 30 years. Trump was able to flip the Wolverine state narrowly in 2016, and if recent polling is indicative, he looks poised to make a serious run at it again,” he told Newsweek.

“For Biden, low approvals in Michigan reflect a broader trend across the Rust Belt, which extends to states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and elsewhere, in which the president is failing to resonate both on cultural and kitchen-table issues. With broader demographic trends of working-class whites shifting toward the Republican Party, Democrats need to make up for these losses with more mobilization of urban and young voters in places like Detroit, Grand Rapids, and Ann Arbor. Right now, Biden is struggling to do exactly that.”

But for 79-year-old Ed Malkin, a Democratic-leaning independent and retired pharmacist who has lived in Michigan for all of his life, Biden’s problems are more about communication than substance.

“They need someone to takeover their marketing because it is sad how the general public have no idea what he [Biden] has done and what he’s accomplished,” he told Newsweek, adding that the president’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and infrastructure investment had impressed him.

On Israel, he said voters are swayed by what they see on social media and can be uneducated about the conflict. Nevertheless, he said that “I think he [Biden] is doing a remarkable job of walking a tightrope of being a friend of Israel” and remaining “as moderate as possible.”

“He is taking a hard stance that needs to be taken on bullies,” he added. “Someone has to do it.”

Talking about why voters are turning against Biden in the state, he said it was “disillusioning and disheartening to think that the Democrats can’t do a better job.”

“There’s a tremendous amount of work ahead of him [Biden] to convince people and educate people why they should vote for him again,” he said.

In a series of elections held on November 8, 2022, Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer was re-elected with a comfortable margin. The party also took full control of the state government for the first time since 1983 and maintained control of seven seats in the House of Representatives.

On the polling evidence, whether Biden will be able to replicate that success in 2024 is open to question.