Biden Starts Year Two With Diminished Public Support and a Daunting List of Challenges

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Joe Biden began his presidency with positive job ratings and broad public confidence in his ability to deal with a number of major challenges – particularly the public health impact of the coronavirus. He starts his second year with diminished job approval and majorities expressing little or no confidence in him on many of these same issues, the coronavirus included.

Currently, 41% of U.S. adults approve of Biden’s job performance, which is down slightly from September (44%) and substantially lower than last April (59%). …

In addition, favorable views of Congress have declined, with the change largely driven by Democrats. Overall, 28% of the public expresses a favorable opinion of Congress, compared with 36% last April. CONTINUED

Pew Research Center

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Biden Seen as Likable, Smart; Not Strong Leader, Manager

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President Joe Biden is viewed as likable and intelligent by three in five Americans. However, at the end of a challenging first year in office, with his approval rating at a personal low of 40%, less than half of U.S. adults think he possesses five other positive character qualities, least of all being a strong and decisive leader (37%) and able to manage the government effectively (38%). CONTINUED

Megan Brenan, Gallup

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Majority of Americans think U.S. is heading in the wrong direction

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According to an NBC News poll, 72 percent of Americans believe that America is headed in the wrong direction as President Biden begins his second year in office. NBC News’ senior political editor Mark Murray breaks down what the recent poll numbers could mean for the upcoming midterm elections.

NBC News

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Why the coming confrontation on abortion will echo the battle over voting

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The approaching legal and political showdown over abortion will reprise the key dynamics that shaped last week’s bitter Senate struggle over voting rights — and further inflame disputes between the parties over the filibuster and the role of “states’ rights” in limiting federal guarantees of civil rights and liberties.

The same ingredients that produced the voting rights confrontation are reassembling on abortion: a momentous Supreme Court decision, aggressive action in Republican-controlled states, a forceful response from the Democratic majority in the House of Representatives — and a Republican Senate filibuster that stops Democrats in their tracks. CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, CNN

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If history’s a guide, Biden ain’t getting any stronger

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President Joe Biden’s weak political standing looks like cement around the feet of the Democratic majorities in Congress. And even though the 2022 midterm elections are still more than 10 months away, history tells us Biden’s job rating isn’t likely to improve and more likely will deteriorate before Election Day. …

Looking back more than 70 years, there hasn’t been a single president who substantially improved his job approval rating from late January/early February of a midterm election year to late October/early November, according to Gallup’s rich polling archive.

More specifically, in the last 18 midterm elections going back to Harry Truman in 1950, the average president’s job approval rating dropped 8 points between this time of year and Election Day. Biden’s approval was at 40 percent in the most recent Gallup survey, conducted Jan. 3-16. CONTINUED

Nathan L. Gonzales, Roll Call

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Trump is losing to Trumpism

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… A poll came out last week from NBC News that included an interesting finding. When Republicans were asked whether they considered themselves to be more in support of Donald Trump or of the Republican Party, the GOP won by a 20-point margin. In the abstract, that’s probably what you would expect; partisans are partisans, by definition, because of their party allegiances. But over the past several years, that hasn’t been the case on this question. Trump has engendered more support than the party. …

Seven years after Trump first emerged as a significant political force, and with him now in semi-retirement post-2020, the party seems finally to have figured out how to use to its own advantage what made him appealing. Trumpism, if you will, has been licensed out like so many Trump products before. CONTINUED

Philip Bump, Washington Post

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