WASHINGTON (`) — President Joe Biden, fresh from his party’s better-than-expected performance in the midterm elections, is faced with consistent but critical assessments of his leadership and the national economy.
A new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 43% of American adults say they approve of the way Biden is handling his job as president, while 55% disagree. That’s similar to October, just weeks before the Nov. 8 election, which most Americans saw as crucial to the country’s future.
Only about a quarter say the nation is moving in the right direction or the economy is in good shape. Both metrics were largely negative throughout the year as inflation tightened its grip, but were more positive for much of Biden’s first year in office.
Mishana Conlee said she’s trying to be optimistic about the year ahead but thinks things are going down the drain because “our president is incompetent” and not mentally fit for the White House. The 44-year-old from South Bend, Indiana, said she was frustrated with escalating expenses living paycheck-to-paycheck as a nutritionist in a nursing home.
“The more I work, the more I get stuck,” Conlee said. “That’s all.”
She doesn’t blame Biden for the state of inflation, but “I have a feeling he’s not doing anything to change it,” said Conlee, an independent who voted for former President Donald Trump. Biden ‘doing us no good’
The Biden administration, in its second year in the White House, enjoyed economic growth, a string of legislative victories, and relative success for the president’s party in the midterm elections. But that has yet to lead to rave reviews from a pessimistic public.
“I don’t understand why his approval ratings are so low,” says 56-year-old Sarah Apwisch, emphasizing the administration’s investments in infrastructure and computer chip technology.
Apwisch acknowledges it’s been “a tough year” and that prices are higher, but is hopeful about interim results as a Republican-turned-Democrat and worries about the impact of the Make America Great Again movement on the GOP makes.
“We’re on the right track,” said the Three Rivers, Michigan resident who works for the finance department of a market research firm. She’s excited for Democrats to push a far-reaching agenda, including codifying abortion rights.
Even as Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, Democrats defied historical precedent to stymie GOP gains and even improve their Senate majority, which marked this week’s runoff victory for Sen. Raphael Warnock, the only Georgia Democrat who nationally elected this year has been cemented.
Atlanta’s Glen McDaniel, who voted twice for Warnock, believes the Biden administration has moved the country forward and weathered the economic storm as best it could.
“I think this administration has done as much as it can to fight inflation,” the Democrat said.
But McDaniel, a 70-year-old medical researcher, also believes the nation faces “social headwinds” that Biden and the party should prioritize.
“I think the Democrats can be a little more aggressive,” he said, when it came to legislation on marriage equality, reproductive rights and electoral reform.
The poll shows that the majority of Democrats and Republicans alike think things are on the wrong track in the country, likely for different reasons.
But Democrats have shown renewed confidence in Biden, boosting his overall job approval rating after a summer slump. Still, the 43% who agree in the new poll remain somewhat depressed, down from 48% a year ago and much lower than 60% almost two years ago, a month after he took office.
77 percent of Democrats but only 10 percent of Republicans agree with Biden.
While many Americans don’t blame Biden entirely for high inflation, polls this year by `-NORC showed Biden was consistently hit on for his handling of the economy.
As in recent months, the new survey shows that only a quarter of American adults say economic conditions are good, while three-quarters say they are bad. Nine in 10 Republicans and about six in 10 Democrats say the economy is in bad shape. The economy’s ratings have deteriorated amid record-high inflation, despite Biden touting falling gas prices and a low 3.7% unemployment rate.
Joshua Steffens doubts that the job market is as good as the indicators show. The 47-year-old from St. Augustine, Fla., said he has been unemployed since September and is struggling to find a job in information technology.
“Even if they try to claim it looks good,” Steffens said, “in the trenches it definitely doesn’t look like it’s that accurate.”
Biden’s shopping and vacation trips, which have been caught on the broadcast news, are “deaf,” said the Republican, who called the president “a habitual liar.”
Steffens said he and his wife have increasing expenses for electricity and groceries, and being dependent on his wife’s income has “burdened” her Christmas shopping. He doesn’t think Biden is handling high inflation well.
“If he has policies that he’s trying to enforce, they’re not working right now,” Steffens said.
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The survey of 1,124 adults was conducted December 1-5 using a sample from NORC’s AmeriSpeak Probability-Based Panel, which is intended to be representative of the US population. The range of sampling error is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points for all respondents.
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