President Biden’s approval rating continues to be underwater on virtually every issue, with the exception being on his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey from Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll.
Biden’s overall approval rating sits at 41 percent in the survey, and the numbers are not much better when broken down by each issue.
Only 35 percent of registered voters approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, 44 percent approve of his efforts to stimulate job growth and just 33 percent approve of his handling of inflation. Thirty-eight percent of respondents say they support his handling of immigration, and his approval rating on foreign affairs sits at 40 percent.
However, 52 percent of registered voters said they approve of his handling of COVID-19, the lone bright spot in the survey for the White House.
Yet overall, his sagging approval ratings portend a political atmosphere this midterm cycle that will heavily favor Republicans — and warn that a 2024 reelection bid could be a slog.
“Biden continues to struggle with the job and is particularly being slammed by the voters over inflation and immigration. No president has been reelected with numbers like these on job performance,” said pollster Mark Penn.
The survey results come as several polls underscore rising concern over inflation, which hit a four-decade high earlier this year. Republicans also continue to lambast him over what they say is a “crisis” at the southern border, last year’s military withdrawal from Afghanistan and more.
Biden has made tackling the coronavirus a priority since the start of his administration, but Democrats are currently laboring to get another pandemic funding bill across the finish line in Congress.
Negotiations with Republicans have already whittled the legislation down from a $30 billion request to just $10 billion, and efforts to hold a vote on it in the Senate are stuck amid GOP requests over a vote on an immigration-related amendment. Officials, meanwhile, continue to warn that the U.S. risks running low on critical supplies like vaccines and therapeutics if the legislation is not passed.
The Harvard CAPS-Harris Poll survey of 1,963 registered voters was conducted from May 18 to 19. It is a collaboration between the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard University and the Harris Poll.
The survey is an online sample drawn from the Harris Panel and weighted to reflect known demographics. As a representative online sample, it does not report a probability confidence interval.