Biden’s first-year report card: just like Trump’s

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Joe Biden pitched himself as the antithesis of Donald Trump, but the president is ending his first year in office with a similarly dismal report card from voters as his predecessor.

Like Trump, more voters gave Biden a failing mark at the quarter mark of his term than those who awarded an “A” or “B” combined, according to a POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released Wednesday. About 37 percent of those surveyed rated Biden’s performance as an “F,” compared to the 31 percent who gave either an “A” or “B” grade for the past year. CONTINUED

Nick Niedzwiadek, Politico

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CBS News poll analysis: Who wants to end or keep the filibuster?

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Even as many Democrats tend to rank the economy, inflation and COVID-19 among top issues, most Democrats do say it is also “very important” to pass a voting rights bill, and two-thirds of Americans overall say it’s at least somewhat important, as this week’s CBS News poll showed.

Meanwhile, a majority of Democrats have certainly had their fill of the filibuster: they’d end it, as a general matter. But two-thirds of Republicans say they’d keep it. CONTINUED

Anthony Salvanto, Jennifer De Pinto & Fred Backus, CBS News

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America’s shift to the right in 2021 is worse news for Democrats than it seems

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… Democrats have repeatedly hoped that Trump would prove so poisonous that the electorate would turn against the GOP. It worked in 2018, when the midterms served as a repudiation of Trump’s politics. It didn’t work in 2016, though, when Trump first won, and it offered only limited utility in 2020, when Trump earned significantly more support than he had four years prior, even while losing the popular vote by a wider margin. Democrats had unified control of government — but only barely.

And that was before Trump and congressional Republicans tried to subvert Biden’s victory. There are a lot of reasons for the swing back to the right over the past year, most of which center on Biden, not Trump. But Democratic efforts to cast the GOP as hostile to democracy itself either aren’t landing — as polling has suggested — or aren’t compelling.

In other words, Gallup’s data suggests both that Democrats are poised to lose ground this year and that a central argument against their opponents isn’t having a political effect. That bodes poorly for the left over the short term and the long term. CONTINUED

Philip Bump, Washington Post

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One Year Later, Americans Describe the Capitol Insurrectionists as “Stupid,” “Idiots,” “Terrorists”

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In the immediate wake of the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, we asked Americans how they would describe those people who stormed the Capitol. At the time, the most common word Americans used to describe people involved in the storming was, by far, “terrorists.” People also frequently used words like “stupid,” “criminals,” “crazy,” “disgusting,” “idiots,” “traitors,” and “horrible.” Since then, however, there have been attempts by some conservatives to paint the insurrectionists in a more positive light. At the same time, investigations into the event are ongoing. How are Americans thinking about the insurrectionists one year later? CONTINUED

Mia Costa (Dartmouth) & Brian Schaffner (Tufts), Data for Progress

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Biden Year One Approval Ratings Subpar, Extremely Polarized

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During his first year in office, an average of 48.9% of Americans approved of the job President Joe Biden was doing. Biden’s job approval ratings started relatively strong at 57%, but by September had plunged to 43%. A new Gallup poll finds 40% of U.S. adults approving of the job he is doing, his lowest to date.

Among post-World War II presidents elected to their first term, only Donald Trump had a lower first-year average rating, at 38.4%. Bill Clinton’s first-year average was similar to Biden’s, but all other first-year presidents averaged 57% or better. CONTINUED

Jeffrey M. Jones, Gallup

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A new look at how turmoil is defining the lives and politics of Generation Z

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Teens and young adults get a bad rap. They’re often called lazy and entitled, with a new generation seen as inextricably glued to their phones and TikTok. And when they speak up about issues, it can be met with an eye roll or a knowing sigh. It’s the one that suggests, “Maybe they will get how the world works when they’re older.”

But the veteran pollster John Della Volpe says that everything he was told — and that most people think — about Generation Z is wrong. Della Volpe is the director of polling at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics and a former adviser to the Biden campaign, and he explores the evolution of Gen Z in his new book. CONTINUED

Juana Summers, NPR News

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