Biden's first 100 days: Approval one of lowest in modern history, economy marks bad f

Biden's first 100 days: Approval one of lowest in modern history, economy marks bad for new president
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Chris Enloe
April 25th 2021

President Joe Biden earned one of the lowest approval ratings among presidents in the modern era during his first 100 days in office, according to a new poll.

The ABC News/Washington Post poll, conducted April 18 to April 21, found that Biden's approval rating stands at a paltry 52%, far below expectations that Democrats had for the new president they predicted would be a mostly unifying figure.

In fact, Biden's approval rating is "lower than any president at 100 days in office since 1945," according to ABC News. Only Gerald Ford, who was publicly damaged by his decision to pardon Richard Nixon, and Donald Trump had lower approval ratings for their first 100 days in the White House. Still, Biden's 52% is 10 points higher than Trump's 42%.

Overall, the average approval rating for the 14 presidents from Harry Truman to Biden for their first 100 days in office is 66%, meaning Biden is 14% below the average.

The survey found that a majority of Americans — 64% and 65%, respectively — approve of Biden's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and supported his pandemic-related economic relief package. A majority, 58%, also support Biden's proposal to raise corporate taxes.

However, Americans are split on Biden's handling of the economy — just 52% approve — and his multi-trillion dollar infrastructure package, which also earned just 52% approval.

Biden is mostly hampered by his refusal to directly address the border crisis; just 37% of respondents said they approve of Biden's handling of immigration and the intensifying migrant crisis at the southern U.S. border.

According to ABC News, respondents also dislike Biden's trend toward enlarging the government, and a significant portion said they view him as "too liberal."

More broadly, 53 percent express concern that Biden will do too much to increase the size and role of government in U.S. society. Relatedly, 40 percent see him as "too liberal," more than said so about either of his most recent Democratic predecessors at 100 days – Barack Obama, 33 percent, and Bill Clinton, 26 percent. (This rose for Obama later in his presidency.)

What does this mean for Biden?

Although ABC News attributed the lower-than-expected approval marks to partisanship, the poll actually revealed that just 42% of Americans rate the economy positively under Biden, while 58% rate it negatively.

The data show that Biden did not experience a boost in that very important metric, which could spell disaster for his hopes of re-election if he is not able to reverse that perception.

"Biden's rating for handling the economy is essentially the same as Trump's in January, marking this as a clear challenge," ABC News reported. "Presidential fortunes often are closely linked to economic conditions."

https://www.theblaze.com/news/bidens-first-100-days-approval-one-of-lowest-in-modern-history-economy

Here's NBC's take with a similar poll.


Poll: At 100 days, Biden's approval remains strong. Can the honeymoon last?

Mark Murray
April 25, 2021, 7:02 AM

WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden nears his 100th day in office, slightly more than half of Americans say they approve of his job performance. Biden gets his highest marks on handling the Covid-19 pandemic and his lowest on the situation at the southern border.

Those are the results of a new national NBC News poll, which also found a public that’s largely supportive of Biden’s top legislative priorities; more optimistic about defeating the pandemic; and more bullish about the country’s direction than it was back in January.

“What we don’t know is if this is part of a 100-day honeymoon or something more durable and lasting for the Biden-Harris administration,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.

“What we do know is that Joe Biden's presidency is meeting the times,” Horwitt added.
https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/dj...e7732f09870222


But the poll also shows that nearly 1 in 5 Americans are resistant or hesitant about getting a Covid-19 vaccine; that a majority believe the nation is on the wrong track; and that a whopping 80 percent still think the country is mostly divided, despite Biden’s promise to be a more unifying president.

“In a first-100-days poll, we change presidents, but we don’t change the country,” said McInturff, arguing that the poll doesn’t suggest profound changes in attitude about the nation’s direction and its politics.
According to the poll, 53 percent of adults say they approve of Biden’s job as president — including 90 percent of Democrats, 61 percent of independents but just 9 percent of Republicans — while 39 percent of all respondents say they disapprove.

Biden’s job rating is higher than Donald Trump’s was at this same point in time in the poll (40 percent approve, 54 percent disapprove), but it’s lower than Barack Obama’s was at 100 days (61 percent approve, 30 percent disapprove).

Among registered voters in the new poll, Biden’s job rating stands at 51 percent who approve, 43 percent who disapprove.

The president gets his highest marks on handling the pandemic (69 percent approve), on dealing with the economy (52 percent approve), on uniting the country (52 percent approve) and on race relations (49 percent approve).
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“I think I just like how he's handling the Covid crisis more than Trump did,” said one Democratic poll respondent from Iowa.

But Biden’s lowest scores come on dealing with China (35 percent), handling the gun issue (34 percent) and dealing with border security and immigration (33 percent).

“He opened floodgates for illegal immigration,” said one female Trump voter from Texas.

And by a 55-to-34 percent margin, respondents believe that Biden has returned the country to a more typical way that past presidents have governed the country.

“I don't have to think about what Joe Biden is doing every day,” said a North Carolina man who voted for Biden. “The best thing about Joe Biden is I don't have to think about Joe Biden.”

Covid and infrastructure plans popular

The NBC News poll also found that Biden’s top legislative priorities are fairly popular with the American public.

Forty-six percent of Americans say the Covid-19 relief bill he signed into law in March is a good idea, versus 25 percent who call it a bad idea, with another 26 percent who don’t have an opinion.

And 59 percent say his infrastructure plan — which would upgrade roads and bridges, expand broadband access and pay to care for the elderly and disabled — is a good idea, while 21 percent disagree; 19 percent don’t have an opinion.

By party, 87 percent of Democrats, 68 percent of independents and 21 percent of Republicans support Biden’s infrastructure plan.

“America may be a divided country, but the data here reveal that Americans are not evenly divided on the path that the Biden-Harris administration is taking,” said Horwitt, the Democratic pollster.

What’s more, 56 percent of respondents say they feel more hopeful when looking at Biden’s leadership and plans for the country, compared with 42 percent who say they feel more doubtful.

Fifty-one percent believe Biden has so far accomplished a great deal or a fair amount in office, versus 47 percent who say he’s accomplished very little or just some — a result that virtually matches the popular vote in the 2020 presidential election.

And when it comes to perceptions of Biden’s ideology, 42 percent of Americans identify the president as moderate; 29 percent say he’s “very liberal”; 15 percent believe he’s “somewhat liberal”; and a combined 8 percent say he’s conservative.

Growing confidence in Covid fight

A majority of Americans — 61 percent — say the worst is behind the United States when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic, while just 19 percent believe the worst is yet to come.

That’s a significant reversal from the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in October, when 55 percent of voters said the worst was yet to come, and when only 25 percent said the worst was behind the U.S.

The poll also showed that 57 percent of Americans say they’ve already received a Covid-19 vaccine; another 8 percent say they will take the vaccine as soon as they can; and 15 percent say they will wait to see if there are major side effects before take taking it.

https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/QK...acdeaa64d7e914


That’s compared with 12 percent who say they will never take the vaccine, as well as another 7 percent who will take it only if it’s required.

There’s a striking divide by party here: Among Democrats, 74 percent say they’ve already been vaccinated, while just 4 percent say they won’t ever take it.

But among Republicans, 40 percent say they’ve been vaccinated, while 24 percent say they’ll never take it.

Divided rather than united

Thirty-six percent of Americans say the country is headed in the right direction — up from 21 percent who said this in January.

Yet 56 percent believe the nation is on the wrong track, which continues a streak (going back to George W. Bush’s second term as president) of at least a majority of Americans holding this view in the poll.

And despite Biden’s positive marks on uniting the country, 82 percent of respondents in the poll say the country is divided, while only 16 percent say it’s united.

Other poll findings

• Asked to pick the one or two most important issues facing the country, Americans’ top responses were Covid-19 (30 percent), uniting the country (25 percent), race relations (23 percent), the economy (23 percent) and border security and immigration (22 percent).
• The top responses among Democrats were Covid-19 (43 percent), race relations (35 percent), guns (25 percent) and unity (24 percent).
• Among Republicans, the top responses were the border/immigration (47 percent), the economy (28 percent), taxes and spending (23 percent) and unity (17 percent).
• Democrats hold a 5-point advantage in congressional preference, with 47 percent of registered voters preferring a Democratic-controlled Congress, and with 42 percent preferring Republicans in charge.
• And former President Donald Trump’s favorable/unfavorable rating in the poll is 32 percent positive, 55 percent negative, while Biden’s score is 50 percent positive, 36 percent negative.

The NBC News poll was conducted April 17-20 among 1,000 adults — 60 percent of whom have only a cell phone — and it has an overall margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points.


https://www.aol.com/poll-100-days-bi...110200587.html

Poll: Majority Disapprove of Biden’s Handling of Illegal Immigration

by JOHN BINDER 25 Apr 2021

The majority of Americans disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of illegal immigration at the United States-Mexico border, where the administration has welcomed thousands of migrants into the nation’s interior without having to quarantine or test for the Chinese coronavirus, according to a recent poll.

The Washington Post/ABC News poll revealed that about 53 percent of American adults said they disapprove of the way Biden is handling illegal immigration at the southern border — including 42 percent who said they “strongly disapprove” of Biden’s handling and 10 percent who said they “somewhat disapprove.”

Just 37 percent of American adults said they approved of Biden’s handling of illegal immigration.

The poll showed that Biden’s transformation of the U.S.-Mexico border into a welcoming center for border crossers to merely check-in at before their release into the nation’s interior is unpopular with swing voters, GOP voters, those who lean Republican, conservatives, and non-college-educated Americans.

About 58 percent of swing voters said they disapprove of Biden’s handling of illegal immigration, along with 86 percent of Republicans, 85 percent of those who lean Republican, and 78 percent of conservatives.

Meanwhile, 56 percent of non-college-educated Americans said they disapproved of Biden’s handling of illegal immigration — including 72 percent of white non-college-educated Americans.

Across income levels, a plurality of 48 percent earning less than $50,000 a year disapprove of Biden’s handling of illegal immigration, as well as 52 percent of those earning $50,000 to $100,000 a year, and 62 percent of those earning more than $100,000 a year.

The poll is the latest to show that the issue of mass immigration to the U.S. is dragging down Biden’s approval. Voters in swing districts, for example, are moving toward Republicans strictly because of Biden’s handling of illegal immigration, polls found this month.

Aside from the skyrocketing illegal immigration levels at the southern border, where nearly 170,000 border crossers were apprehended in March, the Biden administration has gutted interior immigration enforcement.

Last week, for instance, Biden’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced they would no longer be fining illegal aliens who refused to depart the U.S. after having previously committing to do so. Instead, Biden is canceling the debt of illegal aliens who were fined under former President Trump’s administration.

Likewise, DHS is preventing about 9-in-10 deportations with “sanctuary country” orders that have resulted in a 70 percent drop in the number of criminal illegal aliens in federal custody and an 80 percent reduction in arrests of illegal aliens.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2...l-immigration/

NBC’s Chuck Todd: Biden’s 53% Approval Rating Is ‘the New 60’

by PAM KEY 25 Apr 2021

NBC anchor Chuck Todd said on this week’s broadcast of “Sunday Today” that President Joe Biden’s 53% approval rating in a new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll was “the new 60.”

Todd said, “He’s riding the momentum in some ways of a recovering economy and the escalation of the vaccinations. At the end of the day, this is happening on his watch. Things look like they weren’t going to go well. He took over, and things seem to smooth out. Some argue they always would have, but it doesn’t matter. It’s on his watch. That’s given him political capital. In our numbers here, you see that that is driving the overall positive approval ratings he has.”

He continued, “Any time you’re over 50 in this polarized environment, that’s really solid. It’s sort of the new 60 percent of the way when you and I grew up in the 80s and 90s.”

He added, “There are warning signs in here, on immigration and taxes. He is upside down. It’s not bad enough that it impacts his overall number.”

Geist said, “It’s interesting, relative to past presidents, his approval at this point isn’t that high compared to President Obama or George W. Bush.

But compared to Donald Trump and given where we are in the country, it’s a pretty decent number.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2021...is-the-new-60/