President Joe Biden finally announced two weeks ago that he will run for a second term, but maybe he should have waited.

Former Bill Clinton strategist Mark Penn told Fox News Monday that he believes that formal announcement triggered an approval rating drop for Biden, who in the latest Washington Post/ABC News poll was at 36%.

Biden Job Approval

Among Adults (1,006):
Approve 36%
Disapprove 56%
.
Among RV (900):
Approve 37%
Disapprove 56%

.@ABC/@washingtonpost, 4/28-5/3https://t.co/Marwsbnb4P

— Political Polls (@Politics_Polls) May 8, 2023

Penn, who now runs a marketing and communication firm, said,

Well, when he drops here from 42 to 36 in approval in this poll, that’s all Democrats who are jumping ship and saying, ‘I don’t approve of the presidency he’s doing,'” Penn explained. “And I think we’ve seen for a long time – look the Harris polling showed the same thing for a long time – people question his fitness for continued office, most Democrats didn’t want him to run. But this poll has to send shockwaves; he just announced for the presidency. You’re supposed to go up when you announce, not down.

A potential Titanic

When asked by Hemmer why he thought Biden dropped to the lowest approval ratings for a first-term president in the last 80 years--including Trump--he said that the re-elect announcement triggered those who didn't want him to run again.

"I think that the fact that he said he’s running for president when less than 40 percent of Democrats really support his reelection,” Penn answered. “Remember, they rushed out this announcement. It was supposed to be in July. That would have given everyone an opportunity to see how he’s doing and not freeze the field. Instead, he froze the field in the Democratic Party, everybody’s got to support him now, and with numbers like this, they’re looking at a potential Titanic.”

Trump--under indictment and still complaining that he still really won the 2020 election--now leads Biden in most recent polls, despite Trump's unpopularity with Democrat voters and many independents.

When voters would rather have Trump than Biden, this early in the race, that's a huge red flag for Democrats.

A tipping point?

There are many reasons why voters don't want to see another Biden term.

The economy is teetering on the edge of recession, and Biden shows no signs of doing anything that would make it better.

The absolute mess on the border is about to get a lot worse as Title 42 ends this week.

But the biggest reason in the minds of many voters is that Biden is clearly mentally diminished, and his condition is obviously deteriorating rather rapidly.

American voters may be increasingly partisan and given to ideological rather than practical considerations, but a tipping point may have been reached where it just becomes obvious that another six years of Biden are going to damage the country in ways it might not be able to recover from.

Certainly, the race is far from over, but Biden is not going to get better with age. Is another Biden-Trump matchup really the best America can do in 2024?