President Joe Biden has tried to redefine the word \u201crecession.\u201d Can he do the same thing with the term \u201capproval rating?\u201d<\/p>\n
If not, then he and the Democrats are in real trouble. That\u2019s because the latest round of presidential polling from Gallup<\/a> came out Friday \u2014 and Biden not only sits at a personal low of 38 percent, his sixth-quarter average of 40 percent approval is the lowest of any president during the history of the Gallup poll.<\/p>\n Just for clarification, that goes all the way back to Dwight David Eisenhower, who hit the sixth quarter of his presidency in 1954. That\u2019s right \u2014 Biden sits at the lowest number in seven decades.<\/p>\n In a media release, Gallup did try to soften the blow: \u201cNo president elected to his first term has had a lower sixth-quarter average than Biden, although Jimmy Carter\u2019s and Donald Trump\u2019s ratings were only slightly better, at 42%. Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan also averaged below majority approval.\u201d<\/p>\n Just so we\u2019re clear, though: At least four of the five presidents mentioned there suffered cataclysmic wipeouts in the midterm elections. (Ronald Reagan<\/a>, while he didn\u2019t fare well in the 1982 midterms due to a recession, saw a Senate that was largely unchanged, even if the Democrats did gain 27 seats<\/a> in the House. So, it could be five out of five, depending on your definition of whether 1982 was a wipeout. Either way, those aren\u2019t the odds I would pick, were I a Democrat.)<\/p>\n Trending:<\/p>\n The July 5-26 Gallup survey has a bevy of bad numbers for the president beyond precedent, as well.<\/p>\n GALLUP: Biden Sixth-Quarter Average Is LOWEST for an Elected President pic.twitter.com\/Pg9aqoyhJM<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) July 29, 2022<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n As it stands now, the numbers have Biden at 38 percent approval and 59 percent disapproval. That gets worse when you look into who feels strongly about him, however.<\/p>\n Will Republicans take both houses of Congress in the midterms?<\/p>\n \nYes: 95% (482 Votes)\n<\/p>\n \nNo: 5% (23 Votes)\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In a follow-up question, 45 percent of respondents strongly disapprove of how Biden<\/a> is doing his job. By comparison, only 13 percent strongly approved.<\/p>\n He was also down among every political persuasion but Republicans, who I suspect approve of the way he\u2019s made such a botch of it that the November midterms will be a snap.<\/p>\n Among Democrats, Biden\u2019s approval rating fell from 85 percent on June 1 to 78 percent on July 5 \u2014 a 7-point drop in just a month.<\/p>\n Among independents \u2014 whose loss of confidence in Biden has been the fuel behind the downward trend in his numbers<\/a> \u2014 only 31 percent approve of the job Biden is doing.<\/p>\n That\u2019s down five points from 36 percent on June 1. However, the key number to look at is 61 percent. That\u2019s the percentage of independents who approved of Joe Biden on Jan. 21, 2021 \u2014 the first full day of Biden\u2019s presidency. You read that correctly \u2014 a full 30 percent drop.<\/p>\n Related:<\/p>\n Oh, yes, Republicans. There was the bright spot. Three percent approved of him on June 1. That\u2019s improved to \u2026 5 percent.<\/p>\n I can only surmise that 2 percent of my GOP brethren are watching those Senate seats in Nevada<\/a> and New Hampshire<\/a> turn into tossups and are licking their lips like a 1940s cartoon wolf who has the Democrat donkey tied up and cooking in a boiling cauldron with some potatoes and celery. Or perhaps it\u2019s the fact that the margin of error in the poll \u2014 taken from a random sample of 1,013 adults interviewed via landline telephone \u2014 is 4 points.<\/p>\n You be the judge, although I like the cartoon wolf imagery better.<\/p>\n And \u2014 would you believe it? \u2014 it gets worse.<\/p>\n No matter what people believe about how well Joe Biden is doing his job, what matters is what gets people to fill out ballots. Liberals have argued that the Supreme Court\u2019s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and the refusal of two centrist Democrats \u2014 Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona \u2014 to do away with the filibuster<\/a> might drive Democrats to the polls to support Biden\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n At least in regards to Democrat sentiment toward Biden, however, that\u2019s not coming across.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the first time in Biden\u2019s presidency, Gallup asked Americans about the intensity of their views toward him. Republicans are most likely to hold strong opinions about Biden \u2014 nine in 10 do \u2014 and since most disapprove of the job he is doing, the result is 87% strong disapproval of Biden among Republicans,\u201d Gallup\u2019s media release read.<\/p>\n \u201cIn contrast to Republicans, 36% of Democrats have strong opinions about Biden. Thus, Democrats are much less likely to strongly approve of the job he is doing (30%) than to moderately approve (48%).\u201d<\/p>\n If voter outrage over abortion and the filibuster were to be a major factor in the midterms, it would show up in the intensity of Democrat support for Biden. The president, \u201cdevout Catholic<\/a>\u201d that he is, has been loudly banging the drum on abortion, demanding the Senate nuke the filibuster and pass a bill<\/a> that would codify Roe v. Wade.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth noting that a separate poll seems to confirm the overturning of Roe v. Wade is unlikely to be a driver in the midterms nationwide; a Washington Post-Schar School<\/a> poll, also published Friday, found only 55 percent of voters who say abortion should be legal are certain they\u2019ll vote in November. That\u2019s compared to 66 percent of those who say abortion should be illegal. In addition, \u201cRising Prices\u201d was the number-one issue for voters polled, with 39 percent saying it was \u201cone of the single most important issues.\u201d Only 31 percent listed abortion.<\/p>\n And then there\u2019s the final nail in the electoral coffin: If prior precedent is any predictor, none of this is likely to change before it matters.<\/p>\n \u201cHistory suggests it would be unlikely for Biden\u2019s approval rating to improve during his seventh quarter. To date, only one elected president \u2014 George H.W. Bush \u2014 has seen meaningful improvement in his seventh quarter,\u201d Gallup noted.<\/p>\n And even that came with a caveat: \u201cThe increase reflected a rally in support for Bush after he condemned Iraq\u2019s invasion of Kuwait, which eventually led to the U.S. and allies fighting the Gulf War against Iraq in early 1991.\u201d<\/p>\n Those numbers, sadly, reflect the reality of Biden\u2019s administration. Inflation was at 9.1 percent<\/a> in June, a new high for the president. Biden and his lackeys spent much of this week trying to redefine the word \u201crecession\u201d so that economists wouldn\u2019t say we were in one. (We are, according to the real definition of the word<\/a> \u2014 two quarters of negative economic growth.) New revelations from Hunter Biden\u2019s laptop have raised new questions<\/a> about how much the president knew about his wayward son\u2019s foreign business dealings \u2014 despite his insistence he\u2019s never talked to Hunter about any of them.<\/p>\n\n
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