It's got to be tough to be the leaders at the Washington Post, water-carriers for the Biden administration.

Along with many others, they took a poll to see how his re-election prospects are going ... and they didn't like the results.

A Washington Post-ABC News poll finds President Biden struggling to gain approval from a skeptical public, with dissatisfaction growing over his handling of the economy and immigration, a rising share saying the United States is doing too much to aid Ukraine in its war with Russia and broad concerns about his age as he seeks a second term.

Biden and former president Donald Trump appear headed for a rematch of their 2020 contest, although more than 3 in 5 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say they would prefer a nominee other than the president. But Biden’s advisers have argued that he is the strongest Democrat for 2024 and those who wish for someone else share no consensus on who that should be, with 8 percent naming Vice President Harris, 8 percent naming Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and 20 percent saying they prefer “just someone else.”

The Post-ABC poll shows Biden trailing Trump by 10 percentage points at this early stage in the election cycle, although the sizable margin of Trump’s lead in this survey is significantly at odds with other public polls that show the general election contest a virtual dead heat. The difference between this poll and others, as well as the unusual makeup of Trump’s and Biden’s coalitions in this survey, suggest it is probably an outlier.

Some of them are very bad indeed for Joe Biden's re-election prospects -- a 20-point lead among younger voters, ages 18-35 for President Trump, a 10-point lead in the general election, a near-half of minority voters choosing President Trump, and all this as the Biden administration doubles down to destroy Trump through a string of junk court cases which they hope will ruin him even if they will not win.

It had to be an outlier, right? The Post said so, and it was its own poll. They went up and down the piece trying to diminish the importance of every finding they had in it, and it was pitiful. Yet comparable direction-of-country and job approval ratings were seen, in their past polls and in competitor polls, suggesting they got the sentiment right. But there seems to be a turn in the numbers as the rest of the polling, both their own, and others, shows.

That suggests a crisis, an insurmountable lead that even rigging and cheating isn't going to be able to fix for them. And if Trump does get elected as a result of this doomsday poll, it means the death of the deep state -- and their own role in it.

No wonder they are covering their eyes and telling their readers not to believe it. It's the sad result of a poll, an indicator, so bleak it amounts to a tolling bell on their prospects.

If it happens, it's going to be quite a festival of weeping and gnashing teeth.

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