Posted on 11/03/2021 3:25:28 AM PDT by Kaslin
There's been a lot of attention paid to resident Joe Biden's falling job approval rating. And it is indeed going down, down, down. But along with confidence in the president, the public is also losing faith in the Democratic Party's ability to handle the issues that most concern voters today. It's been a long fall for both Biden and his party since they narrowly won control in Washington one year ago this week.
A new NBC News poll has Biden's job approval rating at 42% among all adults, with a disapproval rating of 54%. That's 12 points underwater, and it is roughly in line with a number of other recent surveys.
On one of the most important issues to voters at this moment -- the economy -- Biden is in a terrible position. Forty percent of those surveyed approve of his handling of the economy, while 57% disapprove. On his handling of the COVID pandemic, 47% disapprove, while a small majority, 51%, still approve of Biden's work. But that number is down from 69% approval in April. Other polls show Biden underwater in the public's view of his handling of national security, the border and other issues.
But Biden's troubles are just part of the Democratic Party's larger problem. The NBC poll is devastating for Democrats trying to convince voters they should be reelected in next year's midterms. The pollsters listed a number of issues and asked voters "which party do you think would do a better job -- the Democratic Party, or the Republican Party?"
Start with the economy. Forty-five percent said the GOP would do a better job, while 27% said the Democrats would -- an 18-point advantage for Republicans. Then go to controlling inflation, a huge and growing concern among all voters. Respondents gave Republicans a 24-point advantage. On national security, respondents gave the GOP a 21-point advantage. On dealing with border security, the GOP advantage was 27 points. On dealing with crime, it was 22 points. On dealing with immigration, it was 9 points, when just last year Democrats had a 6-point advantage. And on the general question of "being effective and getting things done," voters gave Republicans a 13-point advantage.
All in all, it was a huge vote of confidence in Republicans, indicating higher voter trust on a number of essential issues.
Of course, Democrats still had some strengths. On dealing with COVID, they had a 12-point advantage -- down from 17 points last year. On education, they had a 10-point advantage, the same advantage they had on the issue of abortion. On voting rights, the Democratic advantage was 5 points, and on election security it was one point. The only really huge Democratic advantage was on the issue of climate change, where Democrats held a 24-point lead. Climate change, which is not one of the voting public's top concerns, was the only issue on which the Democratic lead was actually growing. On everything else, it was shrinking.
Why are Biden's numbers, and those of his fellow Democrats, going down? Two reasons. The first is their performance in office. And the second is that the electorate is in a different place than it was in November 2020.
Biden is an unlikely president. Like many longtime senators, he wanted the job for decades, starting in the 1970s. But in all that time, virtually no one thought Biden would make a good president. His presidential campaigns went nowhere. He was a senator for life. Even after Barack Obama chose him to be vice president, Biden never appeared to be a natural successor, and, indeed, Obama himself did not see Biden as such. Then, at an age older than any other president, Biden found himself in the bizarre circumstances of the 2020 election and emerged as the candidate many Americans wanted to see as the anti-Trump.
But now that he is in office -- and, at age 78, moving more slowly than he did in his prime -- he is still the Joe Biden many Americans did not think of as presidential material. He promised to deal with the COVID pandemic, and the pandemic came back with a vengeance. He promised to improve the economy, and growth has slowed, with inflation becoming a critical concern. He promised to restore America's place in the world and then led a disastrous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. He promised to fix President Trump's immigration policies and instead brought chaos to the border. Of course his job approval rating is going down. How could it not?
As for Democrats, the party brought an activist agenda to Capitol Hill, only to see the ground shift under their feet. In 2020, they seized on the pandemic to press for long-desired social welfare policies. They proposed giant spending programs that would rival the New Deal and Great Society. They told Biden he could be a new FDR or LBJ. But their massive government spending helped fuel the inflation that is eating away at Americans' quality of life. Even as soaring inflation negates wage gains, all many Democrats can think to do is push for still more spending.
For many years, the Gallup Organization has asked Americans whether they believe government is "trying to do too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses" or whether the government "should do more to solve our country's problems." In most years, a majority says the government is trying to do too many things. Only on very rare occasions does a majority say the government should do more.
The year of the pandemic, 2020, was one of those very rare occasions. For a brief moment, a majority, 54%, said that the government should do more to solve problems, while 41% said it was doing too much. That had not happened in nearly 20 years, since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
But as quickly as it happened, the moment of support for more government activism disappeared. Asking the question again in 2021, Gallup found that a majority, 52%, said the government was doing too much, versus 43% who wanted it to do more. The old order of things had returned.
But Democrats in Congress, and resident Biden in the White House, are acting as if that brief moment in 2020 still governs our politics. It doesn't.
The dems were overconfident and started exposing themselves and their socialist goals to the public.
After this election slap, they will go back into stealth mode and pretend to be moderates. Should be enough to get them back in the winning column again.
Maybe we also had a lot of poll watchers, who weren’t going to take any BS from the rats 🐀
‘and emerged as the candidate many Americans wanted to see as the anti-Trump.’
Many, as in about 12 not 81 million.
Number 2, why would a party try to shove everything down the opponents throat when you have a 50 50 Congress? Especially when you have a President with no mandate. Hubris maybe???
“Number 2, why would a party try to shove everything down the opponents throat when you have a 50 50 Congress? Especially when you have a President with no mandate. Hubris maybe???”
This is the fundamental problem.
The next 11 months will involve Libs scrambling to do what damage that they can. This will hopefully be stymied by Dem house and senate members in blueish areas doing what they do best, staying in office.
Dems overplay their hands. Always. They can’t help themselves. It’s due their fragile self esteem and horrifically flawed worldview.
CC
The big, bad, orange boogey-man is not around anymore. Race, race, race, Nazi, Nazi, Nazi is all you’re going to hear starting Wednesday. If they pick any issue to debate the core of it, they have taken the side against the people and it will be a loser. So keep it at the 30,000 foot view of race, race, race, Nazi, Nazi, Nazi.
Dems overplay their hands. Always. They can’t help themselves. It’s due their fragile self esteem and horrifically flawed worldview.
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Or, perhaps it is because the Democrat Party is not a monolithic party with all members sharing the same belief and agenda. Instead it is a confederation of special interest groups that have found that the Democrat party has no real moral compass and are willing to deal with any group that promises to support them.
So the leadership of the Democrat Party makes deals with the various faction that make up the party.
After the election the various factions want their payoff. Hence the need to overreach and try and pay all their various supporters back.
Dems are all socialists of various degrees. You’ll find nothing like the GOP where you have factions with diametrically opposed agenda such as Main Street MAGA and the Chamber of Commerce wings of the GOP.
Yes - one of last night’s news (NEWSMAX?) segments detailed the vote integrity efforts implemented in VA since last November. Definitely worth reviewing
Sounds reasonable.
CC
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