There’s a lot going on in the Republican presidential primary as we finally move into the first stages of the campaign, but it’s worth remembering just how awful things are going for the guy who currently inhabits the White House.

Bolstering that framing is a new CNN poll, which even Jake Tapper described as “horrible” for Joe Biden during a segment on Thursday.

"Horrible news, horrible for Joe Biden": New CNN poll finds 66% of Americans say a Biden victory would either be a "setback" or a "disaster" pic.twitter.com/wgXuNRvWxW

— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) May 25, 2023

Biden favorable in new CNN poll: 35%

Gut punchhttps://t.co/3LBmYklGKh

— Chris Cillizza (@ChrisCillizza) May 26, 2023

You know things are bad when CNN leads both its television coverage and online write-up with the fact that Biden still leads the Democratic Party primary because last I checked, there is no Democratic Party primary. The DNC has already announced there will be no debates, Biden isn’t campaigning at all, and it’s just a matter of time before some states cancel their primaries altogether. So yes, the president leads a hypothetical match-up with a nutjob who once called for the execution of “climate deniers,” but that isn’t offering any comfort for Democrats who know they are staring at oblivion.

Rest assured, oblivion is the right word to use there. In the poll, 66 percent of respondents described a would-be Biden reelection as either a “setback” or a “disaster.”

Just a third of Americans say that Biden winning in 2024 would be a step forward or a triumph for the country (33%). At the same time, the survey finds a decline in favorable views of Biden over the past six months, from 42% in December to 35% now. And results from the same poll released earlier this week showed Biden’s approval rating for handling the presidency at 40%, among the lowest for any first-term president since Dwight Eisenhower at this point in their term.

I also found Biden’s favorable rating to be interesting in the context of everything that’s happening in the country. In the poll, he’s dropped to just 35 percent on that metric, and it’s easy to see why. While the nation is hurdling toward a debt ceiling disaster, the president just took off on another four-day vacation. That decision came after yet another week of Biden’s mental ineptness being put on public display while the stock market drops, retirements shrink, and bank accounts are drained.

In other words, you’ve got a senile old man who has cost the country dearly with his inflationary policies that can’t even be bothered to pretend to do his job so as to avoid more economic harm to the American people. When it’s put that way, it’s actually astonishing that he’s able to gather 35 percent of respondents to offer him a favorable review.

But as bad as that CNN poll is, there’s one number from the latest Fox News poll that I’d describe as even worse. Specifically, how Biden is doing with independents, a key voting segment heading into the 2024 general election.

Fox News Poll: Are President Biden's policies helping your family?

Helping — 20%
Hurting — 48%

Independents
Helping — 7%
Hurting — 57%https://t.co/4izU1sJFLu pic.twitter.com/go1u2YsxEw

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) May 25, 2023

Among independents, only seven percent believe that Biden’s policies are helping their families. That’s simply stunning. There’s no way to spin that or massage it into something else. It is a direct indictment of Joe Biden as a president and the clearest evidence to date (as far as polling) that he’s a complete failure.

We are going awfully close to the point where anyone could be the GOP nominee in 2024 and potentially be the favorite. That’s a good place to be while Republicans duke it out to decide who they want running the race against the worst president in modern history.