Biden’s political standing continues to worsen every day, as a majority of Americans disapprove of his performance as President, and the U.S. economy experiences record inflation and potentially heads towards recession. According to the latest YouGov/The Economist poll, Biden remains unpopular, as 52% of Americans disapprove of the President’s job while only 39% of respondents think he is doing a good job.
It is not only the YouGov poll that showcases Biden’s unpopularity. The FiveThirtyEight poll aggregator shows that the Democratic President, who enjoyed a 55% approval rating when he took office, has plummeted to below 40%. In fact, the poll aggregator also shows that Biden is currently more unpopular than Donald Trump was at the same time during his presidency, making him the most unpopular president at this point of the presidency over the last 25 years.
The survey shows that Biden is bleeding support among demographic groups that are critical for the Democrat’s chances to win elections: Independents, Hispanics, African Americans, and college-educated men and women. Furthermore, the survey shows that inflation is one of the single most important issues in the minds of the voters and that a significant plurality of the American people blame Biden for the record-breaking levels of inflation the United States is experiencing.
Biden remains unpopular among key demographic groups across the table
The YouGov/ The Economist poll shows the President is underwater or underperforming with large swaths of the electorate. A substantial majority of Independents (56%) disapprove of the job Biden is doing, most worrisome for Biden is that 49% of Independents strongly disapprove of the President, making it even harder for him to try to change their minds before the midterm elections.
Hispanics, who have been a fundamental part of the Democratic coalition of the last few decades, are almost equally divided over Biden’s job performance. According to the poll, 46% of Latinos approve of the President while 41% think he is not doing a good job. While these numbers with Latinos are better than those shown in other polls, the numbers are still very alarming for the Democrats as they have depended on a comfortable advantage with Latinos in order to remain competitive in national elections.
Furthermore, the latest electoral victories by the GOP in areas that are heavily populated by Latinos, and that have been reliably Democratic for decades are reason enough to get Democrats scared about a possible realignment of the Latino electorate.
Biden’s numbers are also disappointing with the pillars of the Democratic coalition. Most college-educated men (54%) and women (50%) disapprove of the job performance of the President, a catastrophic result in a demographic that the Democrats dominated during both the 2016 and 2020 elections.
The President is also underperforming with Blacks, while a majority (59%) of African American respondents still think the president is doing a good job, a significant minority (31%) disapprove of him. If Democrats want to retain control of Congress, they will need to get more than the 59% of the black vote in order to do so.
Inflation, inflation, inflation
As usual, the economy remains the single most important issue in the minds of the voters, and the constant rise in prices is the main worry for the American public. As inflation in America reached 8.6% between May 2021 and May 2022, 72% of Americans think that inflation is a very important issue to them, while 21% think that is somewhat important, according to the survey. Similarly, a majority of Americans (52%) say that inflation has personally impacted them “a lot.”
The poll also shows that a substantial number of voters (47%) think Biden has a “lot of fault” for the rise in prices, even more than those who think the same about the war in Ukraine, despite the continuous efforts by the Biden White House to blame the Russian invasion of Ukraine for the record-breaking inflation.
Daniel is a Political Science and Economics student from the University of South Florida. He worked as a congressional intern to Rep. Gus Bilirakis (FL-12) from January to May 2020. He also is the head of international analysis at Politiks // Daniel es un estudiante de Cs Políticas y Economía en la Universidad del Sur de la Florida. Trabajo como pasante legislativo para el Representate Gus Bilirakis (FL-12) desde enero hasta mayo del 2020. Daniel también es el jefe de análisis internacional de Politiks.