Well, that de-escalated quickly.
Just last week, President Biden hit the high water mark in Morning Consult’s weekly poll tracking his approval rating. It stood at 46%, the highest number Biden put on the board all year. Never mind, it seems, as what goes up must come down, and down it cometh.
According to the latest data from Politico/Morning Consult, Biden and his party are headed the wrong way on the down escalator with less than two months to go to the November midterm elections.
What happened over the past week for voters to start turning sour once again on Biden’s policies? Maybe they bought food.
In other findings, the poll also found Biden’s approval rating dropping to just 41 percent, with 56 percent disapproving. That’s down from 46 percent in last week’s poll — which had represented Biden’s 2022 high-water mark.
A plurality of voters also did not approve of Biden’s handling of the economy, jobs, healthcare, immigration, climate change and a host of other policy areas surveyed in the poll.
The economy was the top issue among 44 percent of voters (the highest of any issue in the poll), and 61 percent disapproved of Biden’s handling of the economy.
He’s underwater on every issue from the economy to climate change. This is a result of dissatisfaction among voters of both parties not enjoying the Biden recession and what it’s doing to their daily lives.
Just yesterday we noted a change in tone coming from the White House. Suddenly, inflation is a problem and families are hurting. That’s the breaking news from the Oval Office but it’s old news for everyone who works for a living every day.
Even the generic ballot number has dropped for Democrats, down three points, a number that correlates with Biden’s approval:
Less than eight weeks before the midterms, Democrats showed a slight advantage over Republicans in congressional races even with Biden’s low approval rating and concerns around the economy.
Forty-five percent of voters said they would vote for a Democrat for Congress if the election was today compared to 43 percent who preferred a Republican candidate, the poll found. In last week’s poll, Democrats had a 5-point lead, 47 percent to 42 percent.
If there’s good news for Democrats heading into November, where is it? Most models and analysts still see Republicans falling just short of taking the Senate. That may be true, Democrats might hold it after November in a 50-50 split with VP Harris breaking the tie, as it is today.
However, if just one or two of the dominoes fall in a different order, Republicans could control the Senate 51-49 after the dust settles without too much trouble.
With Biden’s approval dropping five points in a week and Democrats losing their generic ballot lead, it’s difficult to see how the Senate is anything better than a toss up.
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