Reality bites: What we’re getting wrong about opinion polls 

Pundits on the left and the right are straining to explain a head-scratching phenomenon: President Joe Biden is remarkably unpopular despite near-record-low unemployment, steadily falling inflation, no signs of a long-predicted recession, declining murder rates in most big cities and a nation at peace while its chief foreign foes, China and Russia, struggle. 

The main reasons for Biden’s dismal poll numbers, analysts say, are Americans’ deep concerns about crime; still-high prices for consumers (especially for groceries and gasoline); the economy, including high borrowing costs; and Biden’s age. 

The president’s age is a legitimate issue in the 2024 presidential contest (even though GOP front-runner Donald Trump is only three years younger). But unless people are deceiving pollsters, it can’t explain his poor ratings elsewhere. When Americans tell pollsters the economy is lousy or crime is soaring, presumably it’s because they believe it, not simply because the president is 80. 

Age aside, the pundits’ theories don’t fare well under analysis. A more plausible explanation stares us in the face but draws remarkably little comment in this area: American society has undergone a seismic shift that leaves millions of people profoundly angry and aggrieved about many facets of ordinary life. In polls, they are venting against politicians, grading Biden and others harshly for conditions once accepted more calmly. 

Consider the huge numbers who reject the last presidential election’s outcome. We’ve become so inured to Trump’s conspiracy rants that we almost forget how astonishing this is. Until 2016, only a select few Americans seriously challenged election results. Now, tens of millions adamantly do so. 

Reported behavior from movie theaters, restaurants, social media and elsewhere seem to confirm that we have become a coarser, angrier and meaner society. Why should opinion polls be exempt? Where our parents might have told pollsters, “I’m not too crazy about the country’s direction,” today’s respondents seem more likely to say, “I’m mad as hell, it’s someone else’s fault, and I want them to pay.” 

This can help explain Biden’s poor approval ratings despite an arguably decent track record. In several sensitive areas in the not-so-distant past, conditions were worse — yet people felt better. 

Start with crime. Homicides peaked at 9.82 per 100,000 population in 1991, considerably higher than today’s rate of 6.4. (Obviously there are crimes besides homicides — and car thefts have risen — but murders get the most attention.) 

Throughout 1991, President George H.W. Bush’s approval rating in Gallup polls never dipped below 50 percent. Biden’s approval is currently 41 percent in Gallup’s surveys, and lower in some other polls.  

What about gas prices? After spiking last year, the national average price for regular gas is hovering around $3.80 a gallon, according to AAA. That’s roughly in line with the inflation-adjusted cost over the past half-century. Between 1985 and 2022, the inflation-adjusted annual cost per gallon exceeded $3.90 only twice, in 2001 and 2002. President George W. Bush’s approval rating began that two-year span at 57 percent and ended it at 61 percent. That’s well above Biden’s rating. 

How about the high cost of borrowing? Interest on 30-year mortgages peaked at 18.6 percent in October 1981, more than double today’s rate. President Ronald Reagan’s approval rating that month was 56 percent — 14 points higher than Biden’s today. 

In all three periods cited above, unemployment was well above today’s rate of 3.8 percent. None of these facts are saving Biden from harsh reviews. 

Of course, many factors affect approval ratings. Still, given the broad data, some commentators seem to be contorting themselves to explain why people fulminate over situations their predecessors took more calmly. 

Isn’t it possible — even likely — that something big and fundamental has changed in our society, and pundits are slow to see it? If millions insist that shadowy enemies stole the election, aren’t they also likely to blame someone or something else for all sorts of issues, including fairly high (but not record-high) gasoline prices? For scary accounts of crime (even if the early 1990s were far worse)? For renters’ struggles to buy a house (even though their parents faced vastly higher borrowing rates)? 

A recent CNN poll of New Hampshire residents found huge proportions of people aren’t merely dissatisfied with possible alternatives to Biden and Trump. They’d be angry if these potential candidates were elected. 

How ironic that polls, meant to take society’s temperature, may be misreading one of the most profound shifts in public sentiment in decades. 

All of this may give no comfort to Democrats. But it can prod us to consider a more reality-based way of interpreting polls. And perhaps it can offer Biden a roadmap. 

His near-certain opponent will run on his bottomless rage and vengeance. Biden can go the other way: remind Americans every day that, despite our imperfections, we’re lucky to live in a great nation in a time of broadening opportunity and possibility. Maybe that way he can help us escape the rut of fury and revenge where Trump revels. 

Charles Babington is a Washington writer who covered politics, Congress and the White House for The Washington Post and The Associated Press.