Just a third of Americans approve of President Joe Biden’s job as president in a new poll released Wednesday – with just three-quarters of Democrats registering support for him.
The new Quinnipiac University poll has Biden’s approval rating at 33 per cent, with majority 53 per cent disapproval as the president begins the new year.
A substantial 13 per cent said they had no opinion in the survey, taken as Biden tries to fire up his base during the new year with major speeches on the Jan. 6th anniversary and a call for action on voting rights.
The same poll shows a drop from November, when Biden’s approval was also underwater at 36 to 53 per cent.
Biden’s disapproval among Democrats in the new survey was at 14 per cent, compared to 7 per cent back in November.
A new Qunnipiac University poll has Biden’s approval rating at 33 percent, with majority 53 per cent disapproval as he begins the new year
Among Independents, Biden’s approval is at just 25 percent, with 57 per cent disapproval.
But Biden’s most let-down demographic seems to be Hispanics – only 28% of Hispanics approve of the job Biden is doing as president.
Though Trump made significant in-roads with Latinos in the 2020 election, a safe 70% still went for Biden.
Women were far more likely to approve of Biden than men – 26% vs. 40%.
Black Americans were most likely to approve of Biden’s handling of the presidency – 57% of them did. Meanwhile, 32% of white adults approved.
Notably, young people were the hardest on the president – only 24% of 18- to 34-year-olds approved of Biden’s job as president, while 43% of those over 65 felt the same.
Americans were least happy with Biden’s handling of the economy, where 34% approved and 57% disapproved. They were none too happy with his job on foreign policy either, according to the poll, where 35% approved and 54% disapproved. The president received his highest marks on handling the coronavirus pandemic where 39% approved and 55% disapproved.
But lawmakers in Congress had even lower approval than the president. Only 26% of respondents approved of Republicans’ job in Congress and 30% approved of Democrats’ job.
And as midterm season fires up and Republicans boast of plans to take back Congress, public opinion appears to be on their side, at least by a small margin.
Forty-three percent of respondents said they want to see the GOP take back the House, while 42% said they want Democrats to retain power in the lower chamber. Meanwhile, 45% said they wanted Republicans to take back the Senate and 41% said they wanted Democrats to maintain control. The rest did not offer an opinion.
The dismal numbers for Biden came just as new inflation figures showed that prices rose 7% in December over one year ago, the highest level in 40 years.
Persistent supply chain issues have left grocery shelves bare across the nation this week, drawing comparisons to conditions in the former Soviet Union and putting further upward pressure on prices.
The Labor Department said Wednesday that the consumer price index rose 0.5 percent last month after surging 0.8 percent in November, with Biden apparently trying to highlight that slowing rate of growth as an achievement.
That increase pushed annual inflation to 7 percent in December, which is the highest level since June 1982, and up from November’s 6.8 percent annual rate.
In a statement, Biden called inflation ‘a global challenge’ and claimed the latest numbers were good news, showing the monthly rate of price increases slowed in December from the prior month.
And the U.S. is hitting record-high Covid numbers amid the Omicron variant as many Americans are left scratching their heads trying to figure out where to obtain a test without waiting in line for hours.
The U.S. is currently averaging 750,515 new cases every day, the second highest daily average recorded in the pandemic so far, and around 1,700 largely unvaccinated Americans are dying from the virus every day.
The same Quinnipiac survey shows 53% think it is likely there will be another attack on the U.S. like the Jan. 6th Capitol riot.
Fifty percent called it an attack on democracy, while 44 per cent said too much is being made of the incident, the subject of a House probe that also gets majority support.
And a 58 – 37 percent majority say the nation’s democracy is in danger of collapse, as the nation reveals itself to be more polarized than ever.
As for Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump, who Biden called a ‘defeated former president’ in his Capitol speech, 43 per cent said he bears a lot of responsibility for Jan. 6th, while another 18 percent said he bore some, for a total of 61 per cent. Sixteen per cent said he didn’t bear much responsibility, and 20 per cent said none.
The poll comes as Biden sharpens his attacks on Trump, who is considering a run to try to recapture the White House, while top Republicans in Congress say they could regain control.
The survey comes as Biden’s approval numbers continue to hover in the mid-40s, while a new poll shows that a little more than a third of American voters support changing the filibuster to get voting legislation passed.
A new Politico-Morning Consult survey showed that 44 per cent of voters somewhat or strongly support the job Biden is doing, versus 53 per cent who said they somewhat or strongly disapprove of the Democrat’s handling of the job.
Additionally, 66 per cent of those surveyed describe the U.S. as on the ‘wrong track,’ with 40 per cent saying economic issues will determine how they vote in the 2022 midterm elections.
Thirty-seven per cent of voters said they supported tinkering with the filibuster, according to an earlier poll. Democrats were much more likely to support the move, with 62 per cent saying they supported it, versus just 17 per cent of Republicans
On the economy, Biden’s grades are slightly lower than his overall approval numbers. Forty per cent said they somewhat or strongly approved Biden’s handling of the economy versus 54 per cent who strongly or somewhat disapproved.
This week, Biden has made voting rights his top agenda item – and while provisions within the proposed bills are popular with a majority of Americans, tinkering with the filibuster is not.
Overall, 37 per cent of registered voters said they supported meddling with the filibuster to get voting rights bills through the U.S. Senate.
About an even number, 36 per cent, said they did not support this maneuver.
Democrats were much more likely to support the move, with 62 per cent saying they supported it, versus just 17 per cent of Republicans.
Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have voiced support for a filibuster carve-out that would enable Senate Democrats to pass two House-passed voting rights bills, but Democratic moderates like Sen. Joe Manchin, are against meddling with the filibuster without some GOP support.
The parts of the bills that are popular with the public include making Election Day a federal holiday.
Pollsters found this was backed by 61 per cent of voters.
Additionally, 65 per cent supported expanding access to early voting and 64 per cent support provisions that would prohibit partisan gerrymandering.
Sixty-three per cent backed requiring states with a recent history of voting rights legislation to have to go through the Department of Justice before making changes to voting laws, a component in the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
Even 58 per cent of Republicans favored DOJ oversight, pollsters found.
