The majority of respondents also have little hope for the future
The majority – 58% – of Americans disapprove of Joe Biden’s performance as US president, according to a CNN poll taken over the last month and published on Thursday. The figures follow a steady decline in popular opinion regarding the Democratic career politician, whose approval ratings have been slipping precipitously since last March.
More than half of the group that reportedly disapproved of Biden – 56% – also said there was “literally nothing Biden has done since taking office that they approve of,” and a similar proportion (57%) of Americans declared the first year of his presidency to be more of a failure than a success.
Even Democrats are beginning to tire of their leader. While 83% of party members reportedly approved of Biden’s performance, that figure was down 11 points from last March. And his approval ratings among non-Democrats are bottoming out – just 36% of independents and 9% of Republicans viewed his performance positively.
Respondents who disapproved of Biden’s performance had no shortage of reasons. His handling of the economy and the pandemic has dropped 8 and 9 points, respectively, with only 37% of Americans favoring his economic policies and 45% approving of his pandemic response. Just 18% claimed to have a lot of confidence in his ability to handle the economy going forward, and only a quarter were highly confident in his pandemic policies to come – nearly halving the numbers he was getting last year. Near-record inflation leading to soaring gas and food prices has many Americans struggling to make ends meet – the ones lucky enough to have kept their jobs during the pandemic, at least.
The growing chorus of disapproval was reflected in the answers to questions about the Covid-19 policy, which still governs many aspects of life, especially in blue states. While nearly three-fourths of Democrats (73%) were highly in favor of existing policies aimed at stopping the spread, an equivalent portion of Republicans argued it was time to learn to live with the virus, as the UK and some European nations have begun doing. More than half of independents (54%) agreed Americans should learn to live with the virus, a figure which skewed toward younger adults and families with children. US public schools have become partisan battlegrounds over Covid-19 restrictions, with many parents arguing the mask mandates favored by Democratic governors hinder normal childhood development, and a whopping three quarters of Americans reported feeling “burned out” about the pandemic.
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While respondents couldn’t agree on a single leading issue they felt Biden should tackle going forward, only 21% of respondents reported having “a lot of confidence” that he could provide meaningful leadership. Estimates of his ability to work with Congress have more than halved, falling to an abysmal 15%, with an even steeper drop of 28 points among Democrats since last March. The leading issues among respondents were reducing inflation, voting rights, and border security, all issues on which Biden has failed to deliver on campaign promises.
