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President Biden’s woes in the polls continue, with a recent survey by Quinnipiac showing that the President is deep underwater with the American public, with only 37% of those surveyed saying they approve of the job of the President while 52% say they disapprove of Biden. Most noteworthy is that, according to this poll, only 33% of Latino voters think the president is doing a good job, an astonishing number since Biden won the Hispanic vote in 2020 with 59% of the vote, according to Pew Research Center.
When taking other polls into account, Biden’s standing is not as dire as that showed by Quinnipiac, but it is still a very tough reality for the President. Another poll by The Economist/YouGov shows that 50% disapprove of the President’s job, while only 40% approve of his performance so far. According to the FiveThirtyEight poll aggregator, Biden is polling at 44.1% approval and 49.9% disapproval, his highest disapproval number since the website started averaging the polls.
Biden’s polling numbers started to go substantially down in August, with his approvals taking a deep nose dive after the fall of Kabul and the subsequent disastrous American withdrawal from Afghanistan and they have not recovered since. Biden’s White House has been embroiled in a crisis in the southern border with Haitian migrants, a divisive intraparty fight about Infrastructure and the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, a historic diplomatic row with France, rising inflation, and the potentially disastrous shipping crisis.
An opportunity for Republicans
Hispanics are the population that is growing the fastest in the United States, making it an evidently crucial voting bloc for the foreseeable future in the country. Although Democrats have historically dominated the Latino electorate, the 2020 elections showed that the GOP gained some significant inroads with Hispanics across the country, and the latest poll data confirm that Democrats should not take Hispanic voters for granted.
Both the Quinnipiac and the YouGov polls show Biden’s number is very low with the Latino community. The former has a majority of Hispanics (51%) disapproving of Biden, which is an 18-point-difference with those Latinos who do approve of the President. In fact, the percentage of Latinos who strongly disapprove of Biden (39%) is higher than the total amount of Hispanics that approve of the president (33%).
The YouGov poll is marginally better for the Democratic leader, with Hispanic respondents tied at 43% on whether they approve or disapprove of Biden. This is a significant drop from where Biden stood with Latino voters when YouGov did the same poll back in March, with 63% of Hispanics approving of Biden and only 20% disapproving, a shift from a +43 net approval to a 0 net approval rating in less than a year.
However, this rebuke of Biden does not necessarily mean that Latino voters have fully embraced the Republican Party or that they have become strong Trump supporters. The YouGov poll shows that 49% of Latinos have an unfavorable view of the Republican Party, while 56% have a positive view of the Democratic party.
According to the YouGov poll, when asked about their opinions on Trump, 53% of Latinos said they had an unfavorable opinion of him, while 43% said they had a favorable view. The Quinnipiac poll also shows that a healthy majority of Hispanics do not want Trump to run again in 2024, with 58% of Latinos surveyed saying that they do not want him to run and only 33% saying they would.
The Latino vote will play a pivotal role in the elections to come and the 2020 presidential race showed that the Democrat’s hold over the Hispanic community is not as tight as some might have imagined. Instead of improving his numbers with Latinos, Biden has managed to significantly erode his level of Hispanic support.
However, as the polls also show, disliking Biden does not automatically transform you into a Republican and the GOP will have to also work to capitalize this discontent into votes in future elections.
What the polls definitely show is that Hispanics are not a monolith, and are up for grabs.
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.