Leer en Español
If the failure of his attempts to shatter the filibuster, the ongoing crisis with Russia over Ukraine, and the heavily-criticized Wednesday press conference wasn’t enough. President Biden’s week has received another devastating blow after the Associated Press released a poll showing a devastating drop of Biden’s popularity just a few days before the President’s passes the one-year milestone of his tenure.
Although the survey does not reveal anything that has not been known for months—mainly that the President is deeply unpopular across the board—it is still an earth-shattering piece of polling, as the Democrats are desperately trying to change the narrative and political landscape before the voters start casting their ballots for the midterms in November of this year.
The AP poll shows that only a mere 43% of Americans approve of the job the president has been doing so far, while a substantial majority of 56% of respondents think he is not doing a good job. These numbers are pretty much in line with what other polls show, as the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregator shows the president only has a 41.7% of approval compared to 53.4% of disapproval.
Biden’s popularity has plummeted among all voters, including Democrats
According to the AP poll, the source of Biden’s unpopularity is not only focalized in a few disgruntled independents or stubborn Republicans, but his numbers have declined significantly among all partisan, ethnic, racial, age, and gender divides.
The survey shows that Biden’s support among Independents has decreased almost 20 percentage points (from 61% to 43%) since January 2021. Expectedly, his approval numbers among Republicans have also dropped quite substantially, going from 23% to 9% in one year. However, arguably one of the most troubling data points for the Biden camp, is that Biden’s approval numbers have also taken a significant hit among registered Democrats, as only 76% of them approve of the president, an astonishing drop from the almost unanimous support Biden received when he took office last year.
His popularity has also decreased with voters of all ethnicities and races. The President’s support among white Americans has plummeted from 51% to 38%, hardly an encouraging number as whites remain the majority of the American electorate. Most worrisome, however, is the very bad performance of the President among both Hispanic and black voters which is probably keeping Biden’s team of political advisors awake all night.
The AP-NORC poll shows that the Latino electorate has gone from having a largely favorable opinion of the president when he began his term, with 70% approving of his performance, to only a 52% of approval among Hispanics, other polls show an even worst picture for Biden with Latino voters. The black electorate, which has played a key role in the Democrats’ coalition for decades, has also soured on the President, as only 60% of them approve of his performance, a 34-point drop since the beginning of 2021.
A majority of the American electorate also disapproves of the way Biden has handled the most important issues. A whopping 62% think he is not doing a good job on the economy, 54% disapprove of his response to COVID, 56% have a bad opinion on his foreign policy, and 55% think he is not doing a good job on the issue of healthcare.
Another terrible sign for Biden is that almost three-quarters of Americans think the country is going in the wrong direction, in contrast, only 49% of surveyed said the same thing when Biden assumed office in January 2021. Finally, and perhaps the most revealing data from the survey, an almost equally overwhelming majority of Americans (70%) would not like Biden to run for re-election in 2024, an astonishing number for a president in the first year of his term.
The division in America runs deep in almost all relevant political, economic, and cultural issues of today. It appears, however, that Americans are increasingly agreeing on one thing: they are not big fans of President Biden.
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.