Two Different Paths to 41%

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President Biden and former president Trump don’t have a lot in common. But, they share the inauspicious distinction of having the lowest approval ratings in modern history for a president 500 days into his first term. The fivethirtyeight.com tracker has Biden’s net approval rating at a dismal -13.3, two points lower than Trump’s -11 in June of 2018.

But, the paths they took to these dismal ratings are very different.

Trump began his presidency with little support from independents and some skepticism among his own base. By the 2018 midterm election, Trump had consolidated his base, but remained deeply unpopular with independent voters. Meanwhile, Biden started his tenure with strong support from his partisans and decent approval ratings among independent voters. But, Biden lost altitude with both in the late summer/early fall of last year and has yet to regain that support.

The question now is whether the different routes their subpar approval ratings can tell us anything about the likely outcome of the November midterm. CONTINUED

Amy Walter, Cook Political Report with Amy Walter

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Half of U.S. Republicans believe the left led Jan. 6 violence: Reuters/Ipsos poll

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More than half of U.S. Republicans believe the false claim that left-wing protesters led the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot to try to make then-President Donald Trump look bad, according to a new Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll.

The two-day poll, completed on Wednesday, underscored the deep partisan lens through which many Americans view the assault ahead of high-profile televised hearings in Congress beginning on Thursday. CONTINUED

Jason Lange, Reuters

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Support for gun rights has eroded after nearly a decade of mass shootings, poll shows

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Six out of 10 Americans think it is more important to control gun violence than protect gun rights, a significant rise over the last decade evident in the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll, as mass shootings continue to erupt across the U.S. And as midterm elections approach, seven of 10 people say they’re more likely to vote in November after last month’s mass shootings at a school in Uvalde, Texas, and a grocery store in Buffalo, New York. CONTINUED

Laura Santhanam, PBS NewsHour

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Americans Say Birth Control, Divorce Most ‘Morally Acceptable’

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Americans’ ratings of the morality of 19 behaviors are little changed since last year. Using birth control and getting divorced remain the most “morally acceptable” actions, and having extramarital affairs and cloning humans are seen as the most “morally wrong.”

In addition to birth control (92%) and divorce (81%), solid majorities of Americans view eight other behaviors as morally acceptable. CONTINUED

Megan Brenan, Gallup

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How the House Landscape Changed

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Key Points
• The new House landscape is fairly similar to the old one.
• However, there is a notable increase in the number of super-safe Republican seats — and a modest decline in the overall number of competitive districts.
• New Hampshire, the final state to complete redistricting, kept its old map basically intact, which means the state should feature a couple of competitive races.
• Now that redistricting appears to be complete for 2022, we have brought back our traditional House rating tables. CONTINUED

Kyle Kondik, Sabato’s Crystal Ball

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Growing LGBT ID Seen Across Major U.S. Racial, Ethnic Groups

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The growth in the U.S. LGBT population that Gallup reported earlier this year is reflected across the nation’s largest U.S. racial and ethnic groups. Non-Hispanic Black, Non-Hispanic White, and Hispanic adults in the U.S. are all more likely today to identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual than they were in 2012, when Gallup began measuring LGBT identification. CONTINUED

Jeffrey M. Jones, Gallup

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