When a major mouthpiece for the left is forced to admit that Biden is in trouble, Biden is in trouble. After reviewing the latest poll conducted by SSRS Research for CNN, the network’s political commentator, Chris Cillizza, tweeted: “When those who disapproved of Biden’s overall performance were asked to name a single thing he’d done that they … approved of, 56% had nothing positive to say.”
The poll covered a “representative sample of the adult population,” explained SSRS, with the survey done via the internet or by phone from January 10 through February 6. It was a large enough sample to measure accurately, within three percentage points, just how Americans feel about the job Joe Biden is doing after a year in the Oval Office.
No matter what question was asked or what issue or topic was covered, more than six out of ten respondents gave Biden a failing grade: “The President’s ratings have fallen across the board, the survey found. Just 41% approved of the way he’s handling his job while 58% disapproved, a significant drop from his approval numbers in CNN polling last year,” said CNN.
Worse were the survey’s results among Independents and Republicans: “Just 36% of independents and 9% of Republicans approved.”
Even among Democrats Biden lost ground, with 83 percent approving now compared to 94 percent approving last year.
Sixty-two percent disapprove of his handling of the economy (down 8 points since December), 54 percent disapprove of his handling of the pandemic (down 9 points since December), and 57 percent say they consider Biden’s administration to be a failure after his first year in office.
CNN writers Jennifer Agiesta and Ariel Edwards-Levy, given the unhappy task of trying to find something good to say about the CNN-sponsored poll, were hard-pressed to find anything. What they did find is that, given the results, Biden is now essentially a “lame duck” in the White House, with little ability to change or reset the public’s perception of his performance for whatever remains of his first term:
[T]he poll suggests few have much faith in anything Washington or Biden may do this year. The share who say they felt even somewhat well represented by the federal government remained low at 32%, and only 21% of Americans said they currently had a lot of confidence in Biden’s ability to provide real leadership for the country.
The share who said they had a lot of confidence in the President’s ability to work effectively with Congress has dropped by half since last March, from 32% to 15%, including a 28 percentage point drop among Democrats over that time.
John Hanson, writing for The Political Insider, posed: “Democrats must be wondering if it can get any worse. Given the trajectory of this president, the honest answer is ‘probably!’”
