Biden Loses Ground With the Public on Issues, Personal Traits and Job Approval

Pew Research Center conducted this study to understand the public’s views on President Joe Biden’s job performance, the nation’s economy, and proposed infrastructure bills. The study also surveyed adults about Biden’s handling of Afghanistan and views about the admittance of thousands of Afghan refugees into the country. For this analysis, we surveyed 10,371 U. S. adults in September 2021. Everyone who took part in this survey is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology.

Here are the questions used for the report, along with responses, and its methodology.

With his administration facing multiple challenges at home and abroad, President Joe Biden’s job approval rating has fallen sharply in the past two months. Fewer than half of U. S. adults (44%) now approve of the way Biden is handling his job as president, while 53% disapprove. This marks a reversal in Biden’s job ratings since July, when a 55% majority approved of his job performance and 43% disapproved.

Since spring, public confidence in Biden has declined across several issues. In March, majorities expressed confidence in him across six of seven dimensions, including his handling of the public health impact of the coronavirus, and foreign and economic policies. Today, about half still express confidence in his handling of the coronavirus and the economy – but majorities have little or no confidence in him in four other areas.

Positive evaluations of several of Biden’s personal traits and characteristics have shown similar decreases. Compared with March, fewer adults say Biden cares about people like them, and fewer describe him as standing up for his beliefs, honest, a good role model and mentally sharp.

While opinions about Biden remain sharply divided along partisan lines, the decline in his public standing has come among members of both parties. On his job rating, for example, there has been a 13 percentage point decline in the share of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who approve of Biden’s performance (from 88% in July to 75% today); only 9% of Republicans and GOP leaners approve, down from 17% two months ago.

The new survey by Pew Research Center, conducted Sept. 13-19 among 10,371 adults on the Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel, finds that Biden is not the only political leader in Washington whose job ratings have fallen. Just 27% of Americans approve of GOP congressional leaders, down 5 percentage points since April. The decline in approval ratings for Democratic leaders in Congress has been even larger, from 50% to 39%.

There also are signs that the public is generally becoming more pessimistic: Just 26% say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country, down from 33% six months ago. And while views of current economic conditions remain lackluster – 26% rate them as excellent or good – expectations for the economy over the next year have become more negative than they were in the spring.

Currently, 37% of Americans say economic conditions will be worse a year from now, while 29% say things will be better; 34% expect little change. In March, more said economic conditions would improve (44%) than get worse (31%) over the next year, while 24% said conditions would be about the same as they are now.

As has been the case since ... (Read more)

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