President Joe Biden ran in 2020 as the anti-Donald Trump.
Biden claimed he was honest, savvy, and, most importantly, competent.
However, after a couple of months on the job, the public knows now what most everyone in Washington has known for a long time: Biden is the exact opposite of the qualities he claimed to possess.
He may have fooled voters during the election with what political insiders knew were absolute falsehoods. But now that Biden is president, and now that he has to do more than deliver platitudes from his basement, it appears the game is over. You can fool the people for only so long.
The president’s national approval rating has fallen to just 38%, according to a new Quinnipiac survey. For reference, this is exactly where former President Donald Trump’s ratings stood in October 2017 — and Trump didn’t have the benefit of a compliant and admiring news media to boost his administration’s image.
For further reference, Quinnipiac’s first-ever survey of the Biden presidency showed an approval rating of 49%. This means the president has seen an 11-point drop in just the past eight months.
It’s an incredible fall from grace for a man who came to the Oval Office with the enormous advantage of having just run against an unpopular incumbent. Voters wanted the opposite of Trump. They wanted a calm voice, someone who would cool Washington’s extreme partisanship and get things humming again. Biden sold himself as that guy. It was his entire campaign pitch. But President Biden is no Nominee Biden, and voters are clearly none-too-pleased with the bait-and-switch. Through a combination of incompetence, poor judgement, carelessness, actual malfeasance, partisan gamesmanship, ignorance, and cowardice, Biden has managed somehow to squander the goodwill he inherited when he came to the White House.
Biden’s approval among independents is just 32%, with a whopping 60% disapproving of his handling of the presidency, according to Quinnipiac’s most recent data. Meanwhile, only 4% of Republican respondents say they approve of Biden, while a much, much larger 94% say they disapprove. The president is underwater with Hispanics. He’s also underwater with women.
The survey, which polled some 1,326 U.S. adults between October 1st and 4th, has a margin of error of 2.7 percentage points.
If it’s any consolation for Biden, Quinnipiac found he polls at 66% among African Americans. It also found 88% of Democratic respondents say they approve of his management of the presidency, while a much smaller 10% said they disapprove.
However, for Biden, these are the survey’s only bright spots. The rest is bad news for him and whatever hopes he has for reelection.
Fifty-six percent of respondents said Biden does not have “good leadership skills.” Fifty-four percent said he is incompetent. Fifty percent, meanwhile, said Biden is dishonest.
There’s more.
In nearly every category, Biden performs poorly. There is not a single issue where which voters see him as competent, trustworthy, or on the right track.
It would be unwise for Biden and his allies to dismiss the new Quinnipiac survey as just one poll. The RealClearPolitics polling average also shows the president’s overall approval rating is just 44.6%, the lowest of his presidency. Put bluntly, the president has a real problem on his hands, and it appears to be: him. Indeed, the more the public has gotten to know Biden as president, the less it likes him, flunking him on everything from honesty to intelligence.
Now that Biden’s anti-Trump gimmick has collapsed and the public sees him as every bit incompetent and untrustworthy as his predecessor, what do you suppose the president’s reelection campaign message will be in 2024?
T. Becket AdamsThe views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of Citizens Journal
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