A new NBC News poll shows that Joe Biden’s approval among American adults has fallen to 42 percent. 54 percent disapprove.
This represents a remarkable shrinkage. In August the same pollsters found America split 49-48 on Biden’s performance, with the marginally larger percentage approving of it. In April, they found that Americans approved of Biden’s performance, 53-39.
Now, only 40 percent of adults approve of Biden’s handling of the economy. An even smaller portion, 37 percent, gives him high marks on a 5-point scale for being competent and effective as president, while 28 percent (most of whom have probably been vacationing in Mongolia) give him high marks for uniting the country.
The two Democrats who were part of NBC’s polling team conclude:
The promise[s] of the Biden presidency — knowledge, competence and stability in tough times — have all been called into question. What people voted for was stability and calm. And what they got was instability and chaos.
In other words, as I have argued, the public feels defrauded by Biden.
A second poll seems equally disturbing for Democrats. A new ABC News/Ipsos survey found that the two spending bills being pushed by congressional Dems — infrastructure and reconciliation — aren’t popular taken together.
The pollsters report that a plurality of Americans — 32 percent — said the spending bills would hurt people like them (those surveyed). Only 25 percent said the legislation would help them. The remainder either thought the bills would make no difference — 18 percent — or said they don’t know.
Even Democrats showed little love for their party’s signature spending extravaganza. Fewer than half of them believe the two bills would help people like them. A quarter of them see the bills as making no difference for them. 22 percent say they don’t know what effect these core Democrat agenda items would have on their lives.
I’ve expressed my deep skepticism of Democratic claims that they needed to pass their spending bills to save Terry McAuliffe. I think the ABC News/Ipsos survey confirms the soundness of my skepticism.
It’s possible that Democratic leaders believed their claim that passing the spending bills would help McAuliffe. I think it’s more likely that they cited the McAuliffe-Youngkin contest not out of any genuine belief that enacting their pet agenda items would help the Democratic candidate, but in the hope of causing their caucuses to pass them out of panic.
If so, the strategy didn’t work. McAuliffe will face Virginia’s electorate without whatever benefit congressional action would have afforded him.
The polling suggests there would have been no such benefit — not even among Democratic voters.
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