Behind the scenes, Biden has grown angry and anxious about re-election effort

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden was seething.

In a private meeting at the White House in January, allies of the president had just told him that his poll numbers in Michigan and Georgia had dropped over his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas.

Both are battleground states he narrowly won four years ago, and he can’t afford any backsliding if he is to once again defeat Donald Trump. He began to shout and swear, a lawmaker familiar with the meeting said.

He believed he had been doing what was right, despite the political fallout, he told the group, according to the lawmaker.

Asked about the episode, Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said: “President Biden makes national security decisions based on the country’s national security needs alone — no other factor.”

For months, Democrats have watched the 2024 campaign unfold with rising alarm as the sitting president struggles to gain ground against his defeated predecessor. Frustrations rippling through the party have reached the top, with Biden at times second-guessing travel decisions and communications strategies that have left much of the electorate clueless about his record, interviews with nearly 20 lawmakers, present and past administration officials and Biden allies show.

The starting gun for the general election campaign fired last week as Biden wrapped up the Democratic nomination. Yet he is still searching for ways to impress upon voters that he deserves a second term by dint of policy achievements that eluded past presidents.

History suggests it will be tough for him to recover. Biden’s 38% approval rating at this stage in the calendar is lower than that of the last three presidents who went on to lose re-election: Trump (48%), George H.W. Bush