Inflation is soaring, businesses are struggling to hire, the supply chain is in disarray, coronavirus is rampant, everyday Americans are struggling, and the U.S. southern border is in a crisis.
Is it any surprise that President Joe Biden’s poll numbers have just made history at an all-time low?
According to a poll conducted by Trafalgar Group, Biden has a shockingly small 36 percent approval rating.
It gets worse. Over 52 percent of American voters say they “Strongly Disapprove” of the president’s job so far. Another approximately 7 percent say they “Slightly Disapprove.”
Among his core supporters, Biden still enjoys some support… but even that is slipping. Only 18 percent of voters “Strongly Approve” while another 18 percent “Slightly Approve” of Biden’s job as president.
Biden’s team views the pandemic as the root cause of his own political woes. Finally controlling COVID-19, the White House believes, is the skeleton key to rejuvenating the country and reviving Biden from his personal worst 36 percent.
But the coronavirus challenge has proved to be vexing for the White House, with last summer’s premature claims of victory swamped by the more transmissible delta variant, millions of Americans expressing concerns about the vaccines, a supply chain crisis, and the sluggish economy.
The result is the historically lowest approval rating Biden has received in his young first term.
#BidenApproval continues to dip:#Inds 29.3%,#Dem 65.0%,#GOP 8.2%
36.3% Approve,
59.1% Disapprove,
4.6% No Opinion,According to @trafalgar_group #PresidentialApproval #poll Conducted 11/26-29.
See Report: https://t.co/bpiFS1JxgA pic.twitter.com/dsI7yIBboN— Robert C. Cahaly (@RobertCahaly) December 1, 2021
All of that as yet another variant of the virus, omicron, has reached American shores. It is worrying public health officials, leading to new travel bans and panicking markets as scientists race to understand how dangerous it may be.
Asked why Americans aren’t getting the message that the economy the White House says is improving, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said this past week: “We’re still in the middle of fighting a pandemic and people are sick and tired of that. We are, too.”
The state of affairs, she said, affects everything from how people feel about the price of a gallon of gas to how they feel about sending their kids out the door.
Inside the White House and among allies of the president, there has been frustration for weeks over the slow government action to approve booster shots for all adults. The regulatory process, they fear, contributed to misinformation and confusion around the boosters and means the nation isn’t optimally protected for the holiday season.
Many doctors appealed for unvaccinated Americans worried about the shots to talk to a trusted healthcare expert, like a personal care physician, to see whether the vaccine developed by former President Donald Trump’s administration is actually safe.
To Biden’s critics, though, it’s absurd to blame all the nation’s problems on COVID-19 or to think that containing the virus will solve them.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky puts the blame for high prices on Biden’s big pandemic relief package, saying recently: “There is no question what is keeping working Americans awake at night. Inflation. The runaway prices and unpredictability that Democrats’ policies have fueled.”
The Horn editorial team and the Associated Press contributed to this article