Biden approval ratings thread, 1.0

[kwabbit]

Biden is at 46/52 in Rasmussen. Ras is obviously skewed in one direction, but it’s often a leading indicator in approval polling, so it’s a sign Biden might be recovering.

[kwabbit]

The -31 for Biden in Iowa Selzer is too extreme to be believed, but Selzer is absolutely a poll that you should give credence. If Biden's at -31 in Iowa, or anything close to it, say -25, then he's probably quite unpopular in the Midwest, not around even like national polls would suggest. Midwest polling has been spectacularly bad since 2016, but Selzer has been a lone positive. It's frankly the only poll in the Midwest that can be trusted, and one -31 poll in Iowa tells us way more about Wisconsin then 10 polls of Wisconsin itself from other pollsters.

[kwabbit]

I’m truly not trying to be rude to some of you, but it strains credulity to believe that a president with a -10 approval is going to see his party win the midterms by 8 points, one of the largest midterm victories in American history.

It’s insanity to believe it, and ZERO 2021 results suggest it. Zero.

You guys are all among the smartest election geeks online, and you truly believe that yougov gcb poll? Jeez

You truly believe that ONE single poll is definitive?  I think it's probably an outlier in both directions -- Biden probably isn't down by that much, and the Democrats aren't up by that much in GCB.   The 538 average (which isn't perfect, but is very much sounder than RCP) currently has Biden at -5 and the GCB at D+3.  Those are both more reasonable, and a much more plausible combination.

A -5 approval and D+3 GCB are still extremely incongruent. The only recent times where the GCB was close in midterm elections, 1998 and 2002, presidential approval was in the mid-60s. A +30 approval can limit your losses, but if Biden is going into November 2022 with a -5 approval, the GOP is going to win the CGB. Obama was only around -3 in 2010, and only -10 in 2014, causing 7 and 6 point wins for the GOP. A president doesn't need to be that unpopular for his party to suffer big losses in Congress.

Biden would have to be at least +10 for the Dems to not lose the House. Much of the talk about Dems gaining in 2022 revolved around the possibility that Biden would be extremely popular after a successful end to the pandemic. The possibility of Biden being that popular come 2022 is very very low.

[kwabbit]

See, that's why polls for Biden should be taken with a grain of salt than Trump polls.

Democrats consistently do not say everything you'd expect them to (i.e. be fully supportive of Biden just because, or say "Better off" just b/c they want to support Biden). They'll be honest and write About the same if that's what they really want.

However, with Trump fanatics, I guarantee nearly all of them (or a much bigger %) picked "worse off", while Dems were more split, so that's why "Worse Off" is actually higher than Better off.

Though even among Dems, I'm not sure how 45% would still pick About the same. Objectively, between the two bills, nearly every human alive would benefit in some way. No one would really be "worse off", despite what Trumpkins want to believe.

The impact of the bills would be positive for nearly every American, but it's not like it would be life changing for the vast majority. Therefore 'about' the same.

Answering these type of questions in a partisan, insincere manner is not new. In 2019, basically everyone who said the economy was good was GOP, and everyone who said the economy was bad was Dem. The economy was good, and Dems were answering in a clearly partisan manner. This is not a GOP phenomenon, it's that the out party centers itself on opposing the in party's agenda and accomplishment.

[kwabbit]

What's with the poll barrage today lol. I am quite happy to see so many after basically nothing for weeks. Most of them pretty good for the GOP, Biden needs some good news but girlboss Sinema is standing in the way.

[kwabbit]

https://twitter.com/Politics_Polls/status/1457414545266327553?s=20

Biden's approval rating is bad, but it's probably not that bad.

Suffolk has been the worst non-R affiliated pollster for Democrats the past few years. Biden's approval is definitely not this bad, but the trend is still -7 net from their last poll.

[kwabbit]

Passing the infrastructure bill was definite good news for Biden, but it doesn’t have immediate benefits for the voters. People are being squeezed by inflation, and unless you give them money to make up for that, there’s not much reason for Biden’s slide to reverse itself. It is interesting how steady the fall has been, just a long ‘secular’ decline.

[kwabbit]

Well, it looks as if the catastrophic polling that followed the Afghanistan departure is abating.

More likely UT Tyler didn't correct anything that caused its leftwing bias in 2020 and that's coming through in this poll. Given that Biden's nationwide approvals continue to sink, I don't think a single Texas poll from an unreliable university program indicates much. If ABC/WaPo or NYT did a poll of Texas, I would guess they return around -20.

[kwabbit]

The hill;

44% approve; (+2)
45% disapprove; (-2)

https://thehill.com/hilltv/583014-bidens-job-approval-gains-two-points-in-latest-hill-poll

Pathetic, it was his last chance. With the new variant of the virus Biden's approval will drop sharply.

Biden's handling of COVID is actually his strongest issue. You lose.

Not agreeing with Serg here, but if COVID cases rise sharply it might destroy Biden's approval on maybe his only good issue right now. That would cause a further drop in his overall approval.

[kwabbit]

Yeah, I don't think that was difficult to de-code. Biden hasn't been popular for a long time.

The most recent Quinnipiac poll is bad enough to imply something more than that: That even Joe Biden's popularity within his own party is falling apart. We haven't seen a president implode like that since George W. Bush's second term, even if Trump seemed on the cusp of doing so around the time of the street brawls in Charlottesville.

We have seen plenty to indicate that Biden is working with an unusually fragile coalition, but his popularity falling much below 40% would indicate a dramatic enough departure from the polarized political trends of the past thirteen years that it's worth waiting for more evidence.

I'm a little doubtful that Biden tanking will have an especially strong effect on actual election results. Looking at the Quinnipiac crosstabs, Biden is 24/52 among 18-34, but this is not a group that's ever going to vote Republican at particularly high rates. Biden is seemingly collapsing among every group that aren't high propensity college-educated middle-aged and older Whites. But those are people that votes in midterms. I think 2022 is going to be a shellacking, but Biden might do surprisingly well even if he rolls into November 2022 with a -15 approval rating.

[kwabbit]

A notable milestone as Biden’s net approval drops below -10 for the first time on 538. I don’t know what his true approval is, as polling has been scarce recently leading to more variation. It appeared that he was rebounding a month or so ago, but that seems to have been noise.

[kwabbit]

Obama’s approvals in jan 2010 were much much higher than Biden’s right now.

And 2010 was still a shellacking

Trump’s were worse, but he had not yet established the cult. He did so in the lead up to the midterms and saved the Republicans from losing a bunch of senate seats. It remains to be seen whether Biden can consolidate the base. Biden was elected as a broadly palatable figure with not a ton of enthusiasm, and now he’s a broadly unpopular figure with not a ton of enthusiasm. The GCB could be a higher margin than either 2010/2014 if he doesn’t rally the base. For once maybe shifting left might help Biden. Independents seems pretty lost, why not make himself more popular among progressives and young people?

[kwabbit]

Monmouth certainly sounds like some non-response bias. People don't stop identifying closer with a party or closer to a party just because the party is having a rough time

Currently, 26% of American adults identify themselves as Democrats, a number that ranged from 30% to 34% in Monmouth polling throughout last year. Republican identifiers currently stand at 31% of the population, which is up from a range of 23% to 27% in 2021. Moreover, when these numbers are combined with independents who say they lean toward either party, Republicans (51%) have a decided advantage over Democrats (41%).

Yes, they literally do. Non-response bias is a factor, but an unpopular administration would obviously cause a true shift in party ID. It might be a temporary shift, but partisans underestimate the potential fluidity of most independents in how they identify.

[kwabbit]

CBS News/YouGov, Feb. 24-28, 2238 adults (prior poll Feb. 15-18)

Approve 44 (+1)
Disapprove 56 (-1)

Strongly approve 18 (+2)
Strongly disapprove 41 (+3)

I always found it interesting that the strongly disapprove almost matches the total disapproval all the time, while the strongly approve is not even half of total approval.

This was even the case for Trump, despite the idea that his supporters are cult-like or that he had a unified base. Perhaps Americans think more like, "has the president done anything to make me angry?". When the answer is no, they approve, but in a permissive and not enthusiastic way. When the answer is yes they are angry so it's strong disapproval.