Biden continues to sink in polls. FiveThirtyEight combined all of them to find that 49.3% of people disapprove of Biden.
The new Quinnipiac University poll found 42% of people approved of Biden.
But a recent The Economist/YouGov poll, Biden’s overall approval rating is at 39%.
My first reaction was: why so high? It should be something like 2%, if that.
My second reaction was: it’s about time.
My third reaction was: so what? Biden can do a lot of damage anyway. After all, no one is about to remove him unless his approval falls down way below that and polls indicate it will really really hurt Democrats in Congress in 2022 and Democrats figure that they can’t cheat enough to overcome that effect. They also have to figure out who would be best to replace him, and how to go about making that happen if it’s not Kamala Harris.
Only those or other practical considerations might get the Democrats to activate a Biden-ectomy, and if so it will most likely be done not through impeachment but through the more face-saving 25th Amendment or forceful arm-twisting of Biden to effect a resignation for health reasons.
However, looking at those poll numbers we also see the following (approval/disapproval numbers in that order):
Overall: 39/50Men: 36/53Women: 42/46White men no degree: 28/61White women w/ degree: 53/42Black: 65/26Hispanic: 41/36Registered Voters: 43/53Dems: 77/15GOP: 9/89Indie: 35/56
Who are these supposed GOP members who still approve of Biden? As Stephen Green writes: “I don’t know how Biden managed to get a positive nod of approval from 9% of GOP voters, unless The Economist/YouGov oversampled the Bill Kristol household.”
The numbers indicate to me that “white men no degree” are quite savvy. Whereas “white women with degree” – a group of which I happen to be a card-carrying member – are at best gullible and/or uninformed. Note also that black voters are not as keen on Biden as black voters usually are on Democratic presidents, and Hispanic voters really aren’t all that fond of Biden. Independents have soured on him, although a lot of them were fooled at the time of the election and probably are in some ways most responsible for placing him in office because many of them constitute the all-important swing voters.
But how does all of this translate in terms of votes? Leaving aside for a moment the real possibility of fraud in elections, does disapproval of Biden mean that people now regret their votes for Biden – and even more importantly, will it mean they will be less likely to vote for Democrats in 2022 and 2024?
A Zogby poll taken in August indicates that one in five 2020 Biden voters say they regret their vote. In addition, that poll was taken from 8/5 to 8/13, which was before the full disaster of the Afghanistan withdrawal had unfolded. I cannot imagine that event enhanced most people’s feeling of satisfaction with their 2020 Biden vote.
[Neo is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at the new neo.]
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