That’s strange as Democrats have been claiming since the first week of August that Joe Biden became the best president ever overnight by um, doing what, exactly?
Despite the rosy outlook from some in the Biden administration that somehow the country turned a corner and now appreciates or approves of the way the economy has been handled, voters aren’t buying it and a new NBC News poll reflects that reality.
Among the numbers, Biden’s approval rating remains underwater and unchanged since May. Biden’s disapproval, however, has ticked up one more point over the past three months meaning he’s still heading in the wrong direction with midterm voters despite recent so-called “legislative victories” for the climate, healthcare, and something about reducing inflation.
For the NBC News take on their numbers, enjoy these gloomy paragraphs as a good summation of what the Biden malaise looks like:
The poll also shows a dissatisfied public, with three-quarters of voters saying the county is headed in the wrong direction, a record 58% who say that America’s best years are behind it and 61% who say they’re willing to carry a protest sign for a day because they’re so upset.
And it paints a mixed picture of the 2022 midterm landscape, with President Joe Biden’s job rating mired in the low 40s, and with Republicans narrowly leading on congressional preference — but with Democrats nearly tying Republicans on voter enthusiasm — and with “threats to democracy” overtaking the cost of living as the top issue facing the country for voters.
But the survey doesn’t show a significant improvement in the president’s standing, with 42% of registered voters approving of Biden’s job performance and 55% disapproving.
In May, Biden’s job approval stood at 42% among registered voters and 39% among all adults.
The lede of this story — that Republicans are winning the generic ballot by two points — is being buried among meaningless data that voters think investigations into former President Donald Trump, related to the Mar-a-Lago raid, should continue. NBC News didn’t ask a question whether investigations into Hunter Biden should continue but I’m guessing they’d get a similar result.
Where’s Biden’s hot streak? It’s not visible in his approval rating, that’s for certain:
NBC tries to paint their data as somehow a referendum on Trump, of course, but it’s Democrats and Joe Biden currently running the economy and the country into the ground.
Trump isn’t the reason people are still paying over $4 per gallon for gas and record prices for household staples like milk and cereal, that’s all Biden.
Among analysts, Democrats think it could be worse for Biden while Republicans argue that the fundamentals haven’t changed simply because the media decided it wanted to fix the narrative:
“Politically, for Joe Biden and Democrats, the news is not all bad,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.
“Heading into Labor Day, the political dynamics could be worse [for Democrats], but they also need to get a lot better and fast,” he said.
McInturff, the GOP pollster, agrees that the environment has improved for Democrats since earlier this year. But he argues that the main fundamentals — the president’s job rating, the nation’s direction — are breaking against the party.
“America is singing the blues, and that is bad news for the blue team in November,” McInturff said.
As we noted yesterday, the summer months are a weak time for polling data and a time when most of the country is off doing anything else besides paying attention to political news. That situation will soon change come September.
Democrats will take some empty wins in the form of Biden spending $740 billion on climate change garbage and hiring IRS agents yet that won’t improve the economy Americans are living with.
Messaging and smokescreens cannot overcome bad policies and ineffective leadership.
