President Joe Biden’s approval rating continues to resemble retirees in New York in the wintertime: it’s steadily going south. The latest NBC News poll has it at 42 percent with erosion particulary in his marks for competence and achievining unity.
A majority of Americans now disapprove of President Joe Biden’s job performance, while half give him low marks for competence and uniting the country, according to results from the latest national NBC News poll.
What’s more, the survey finds that 7 in 10 adults, including almost half of Democrats, believe the nation is headed in the wrong direction, as well as nearly 60 percent who view Biden’s stewardship of the economy negatively just nine months into his presidency.
One year before next year’s midterm elections and less than a week before Virginia’s closely watched race for governor, Biden’s lower standing has also taken a toll on his party: Democrats trail Republicans on which party better handles the economy, inflation and immigration, while they’ve lost ground on issues like education and the coronavirus.
“Democrats face a country whose opinion of President Biden has turned sharply to the negative since April,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.
“The promise of the Biden presidency — knowledge, competence and stability in tough times — have all been called into question,” Horwitt continued.
“What people voted for was stability and calm,” added fellow Democratic pollster Peter Hart. “And what they got was instability and chaos.”
In the poll, 42 percent of adults say they approve of Biden’s overall job as president — a decline of 7 points since August, with much of the attrition coming from key parts of the Democratic base.
That’s compared to 54 percent who say they disapprove of the president’s job, which is up 6 points since August.
Using Gallup’s historical data, Biden’s approval rating in this poll (42 percent) is lower than any other modern first-year president’s at a similar point in time, with the key exception of Donald Trump (whose approval averaged 37 percent in fall 2017).
Among a narrower set of registered voters, Biden’s job rating stands at 45 percent who approve, 52 percent who disapprove — a drop from 50 percent who approve, 48 percent who disapprove from two months ago.
Polls are snapshots in time. It is argued by some analysts that by the 2021 mid-term elections the economy will be in far better shape, much of covid will have receeded and the (presumed) passage of Biden’s infrastructure and Build Back Better will improve his and the Democrat’s image and also bolster the economy.
But these are all ifs. As my grandmother used to say: “If I had wheels I’d be a trollycar.”
The Biden administration isn’t yet perceived as the Titanic — but Biden’s approval rating has been sinking in a slew of polls.
Biden’s major polling slide began with his decision to pull out of Afghanistan. And the melodrama of Democrats fighting and seemingly playing chicken for months over Biden’s infrastructure and BBB plans have turned off many Democrats and independents.
A key indicator of how Biden and Democrats are doing will come this week in Virginia’s election for governor. Democrat Terry McAuliffe started out with good numbers but they have eroding as fast as beach sand on California’s coast. Polls place this race in a dead heat. If McAuliffe loses it’ll be a huge story and an indication Democrats better brace themselves for overall poor results in the mid-terms.
Graphic: Dreamstime
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.