If the Historic Democratic Coalition Cracks, It's Bad News Not Only for Biden

His party could suffer for many years to come.

Editor’s Note: This column adds important new information to a column I recently wrote.

It’s not exactly breaking news that Joe Biden, who turned 81 today, is historically unpopular, which is why a lot of Democrats from Manhattan to Malibu and everyplace in between just want him to wave goodbye and go home.             

So it’s no big shock that the recent New York Times-Sienna College poll has Donald Trump beating Biden in five of six key battleground states.

Biden’s poll numbers are underwater for a whole bunch of reasons — inflation, the chaos on our southern border, crime, those lingering questions about the president’s frailty, both physical and mental.

And then there’s Joe Manchin, who may join Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Cornell West and Jill Stein running as third-party candidates, causing who-knows-what kind of turmoil.

But it’s more than all of that. There’s another number in the poll that may not only sink Joe Biden’s chances of winning next year, but could jeopardize his party’s chances of winning the White House for many years to come.

It’s a number that, if it holds up, would be historic — historic enough to create a great big crack in the liberal coalition Franklin D. Roosevelt forged nearly 100 years ago.