With the ongoing and continually deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, public support for President Biden’s policies and withdrawal plan has started to nosedive. The worst numbers were already being recorded before 13 U.S. servicemen were tragically killed in a terrorist attack at the Kabul airport on Thursday.
At this point, expect Biden’s approval to continue plummeting as independents and Democrats start to peel away watching the daily chaos and tragedy play out.
As of earlier this week, Biden’s approval tanked to a low of 41% in overall job approval according to a USA Today poll:
For President Joe Biden, the cost of the war’s chaotic end has been steep. His overall job approval rating now stands at 41% who approve versus 55% who disapprove – a big drop in the closely watched barometer of political health. Until last week, national polls generally showed his approval rating above 50%.
While the Afghanistan withdrawal is an absolute mess, now coming with a body count of U.S. troops, it’s not just foreign policy where Biden is suffering.
According to an analysis of Biden’s numbers, the approval slide started to turn down earlier this summer after it was clear that COVID-19 was anything but under control despite the President’s claims in July.
Now, couple the COVID situation with Afghanistan, and you have the recipe for a polling collapse that could ripple into the next election cycle:
The president began the month with an average job approval rating of 51.5%, down from 54% at the start of May.
By Tuesday, Biden’s average approval rating had fallen to 47%, the lowest so far in his presidency.
Polls from Suffolk University, NBC News, Morning Consult, Harris and CBS News all show the same thing: While a majority of Americans agree with Biden’s original decision to pull the last U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, they overwhelmingly disapprove of how the withdrawal is being handled.
Overall, voters approve of Biden’s handling of Covid more than they do his handling of Afghanistan. But his Covid approvals have taken a hit this summer.
A recent NBC News poll found that approval of Biden’s Covid handling fell from 69% in April to 53% in August, a 16-point drop.
Meanwhile, just 25% of voters said they approved of Biden’s handling of the situation in Afghanistan.
As noted, however, the numbers on Biden’s COVID-19 handling were already falling.
A Reuters poll from just over a week ago, before U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan, found that support from independent voters dropped significantly as the Delta variant raged across the country:
The national opinion poll, conducted Aug. 13-19, found that Biden’s net approval among independents dropped by 14 percentage points overall since June, and by 19 points for his handling of the coronavirus. Still, a slim majority of independents – 53% – said they approve of Biden’s pandemic response.
It’s certainly too early to say that Democrats will be hurt in the midterms by Biden’s policies and decision-making, but none of this is helping their case. With Democrats hanging onto a slim majority in the House, any changes in approval at the Presidential level will filter down to Congressional races, especially in crucial swing districts.
