President Joe Biden’s poll numbers have dropped to their lowest in his presidency a year after he was elected, according to a new survey.
Suffolk University and USA Today’s latest poll of 1,000 registered voters showed that only 37.8 per cent of voters approve of the job Mr Biden is doing. The numbers for Vice President Kamala Harris were even lower, as 27.8 per cent of voters approved of the job she was doing. The survey was conducted between Wednesday and Friday of last week and had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
In particular, 46 per cent of voters say Mr Biden has done a worse job than they expected, but 44 per cent of independent voters say he has done a worse job, compared to only 6 per cent of that same group who said he did a better job.
A whopping 64 per cent of voters, including 28 per cent of Democrats, say they do not want Mr Biden to run for a second term. More alarmingly, 39 per cent of people who voted for him don’t want Mr Biden to run again in 2024.
Recent polls had had Mr Biden in the low 40s. A Harvard-CAPS/Harris survey in late October had him at 43 per cent, which was itself down five points from one in September.
The latest numbers are bruising for Democrats and come on the heels of Republican Glenn Youngkin winning the governorship in Virginia a year after Mr Biden won the Commonwealth by 10 points.
But the survey also came in right before the House of Representatives passed Mr Biden’s infrastructure bill with 13 House Republican votes late Friday evening. The bill had already passed the Senate with 19 Republican votes. The bill has overwhelming support, 61 per cent of voters approving of it, according to the USA Today/Suffolk University poll.
Mr Biden is expected to sign the bill soon. But the second part of his domestic policy agenda faces much more headwinds. Only 47 per cent of voters support his proposed Build Back Better bill, a $1.85 trillion social spending bill, while 44 per cent oppose it. The bill would extend the expanded child tax credit, increase funding for home services for elderly people and people with disabilities, create universal pre-K, child care, expand Medicaid and has provisions to combat climate change.
But 30 per cent of voters say the provisions would hurt rather than help their families, compared with 26 per cent of voters who say it would help. But 31 per cent of voters polled say it would not have much effect.
The numbers come a full year before the 2022 midterm elections, which spells good news for Republicans as they plan to take back the House and the Senate. Historically, midterms have boded well for the party that does not control the White House.
