How will the Omicron variant affect Biden's approval rating?

[Calthrina950]

As long as Biden is too indifferent to both the country's safety and his own electoral prospects to impose a universal vaccine mandate, down

I'm not arguing against a vaccine mandate (given my own personal experience), but where would Biden derive the authority to impose such a mandate? The OSHA mandate is already being challenged in court.

[Calthrina950]

As long as Biden is too indifferent to both the country's safety and his own electoral prospects to impose a universal vaccine mandate, down

I'm not arguing against a vaccine mandate (given my own personal experience), but where would Biden derive the authority to impose such a mandate? The OSHA mandate is already being challenged in court.

Justice Roberts has made his ruling, now let him enforce it. SCOTUS holds no enforcement mechanism, and the GOP doesn't follow the few unfavorable SCOTUS rulings it gets, so why should we?

I know who you are referencing, but Roberts hasn't made his ruling yet. And it is true that the Supreme Court cannot enforce its rulings, but I'm not sure if Biden is the kind of President who would try to test that.

[Calthrina950]

The OSHA mandate is more likely to be upheld than not and even if it does get struck down, Roberts is likely to vote in favor of upholding it. 

You're probably right. I do think Roberts will uphold it, and it will probably be upheld by the Court in general, by something like 6-3 or 7-2. The three liberal justices, along with Roberts, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and possibly Gorsuch, would comprise the majority. Alito and Thomas are the two justices who I see voting against it at this time.

[Calthrina950]

It depends on how bad it gets here. If it leads to more NPIs and mask mandates it'll hurt Biden.

This.
We just don't know yet. And I hear that the big pharma's are already in their initial phases of studying and hopefully developing a vaccine that will combat this new variant with more force than the current shots we have.

This would imply that we would need a fourth shot, or a "second booster" shot if you will. I'm pretty well convinced at this point that we will have annual vaccination shots for the coronavirus. But given that we still have a substantial slice of the population that is adamant in refusing to even get their first shot, what more can be done?

[Calthrina950]

It can’t realistically go much lower than it is now - too many solid Dem partisans, as evidenced in this thread.  The persuadable swing voters have already soured on Biden.  The omnomnomrom plague he is about to unleash on us is just icing on the cake.

This is true. Most polls I've seen show Biden with an approval between 40-45%, with around 50-55% disapproving of him. Biden got 51% of the popular vote last year, so he's lost the support of independents and moderates who voted for him to get rid of Trump. Thus, next year's midterms won't see Republicans replicating their dramatic gains of 1994 and 2010, but they are favored, and will make the gains necessary to regain their congressional majorities.