How low can Biden go?

OPINION:

President Biden continues to plunge in the polls, with one new massive survey showing just about everyone dislikes him.

The new CIVIQS poll, which surveyed 165,786 Americans, showed the president’s approval rating at just 34%. His disapproval rating stands at 57%, while 9% are apparently asleep, saying they neither approve nor disapprove.

Wait, it gets worse. Mr. Biden’s approval is below 43% in a whopping 46 states — and in West Virginia, whose moderate Democrat senator, Joe Manchin, has repeatedly clashed with the president — he stands at just 16%. Nearly 80% of West Virginians disapprove of his job in office so far.

What’s more, Mr. Biden’s approval rating is in the 30s in several swing states, including Florida, Arizona and Georgia. And he’s at just 23% with independents nationwide, a voting bloc that helped put him into the White House.

Mr. Biden’s approval rating is above his disapproval rating in just four states, Vermont, Hawaii, Maryland and Massachusetts. And in the Swing states of Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin — all of which voted blue in the 2020 election — the new poll shows voters’ approval of Biden in the low 30s.

In Florida, a swing state that went for former President Donald Trump last election, the poll just 34% approve and 58% disapprove.

The new poll follows four others in the last month that showed equally bad news as the 2022 midterm elections loom. Four major pollsters — Pew Research, Gallup, NBC News and Harvard/CAPS — took nationwide surveys and each had disastrous findings.

In each poll, at least 53% of the country “disapproved” of the job Mr. Biden’s doing. Mr. Trump got just 46.8% of the vote in the 2020 presidential election, so the polls show Biden is now losing the support of Americans who actually voted for him.

That didn’t get past the pollsters at Pew. “Biden’s standing has further slipped among members of his own party after declining in September. About three-quarters of adults who identify as Democrats (76%) say they approve of Biden’s performance — down 7 percentage points from the fall.”

Those surveyed were asked: “Do you approve or disapprove of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as president?” and in the Pew poll overall, just 41% said they approve — down 18 points since last April.

The polls show Mr. Biden is also losing younger people in a major way: He drew a 63% disapproval rating from people between the ages of 19-29. His steadfast opposition to waiving college loan debt won’t help him this November.

“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,” Pew said. “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.”

The NBC News poll showed that more than 51% of the country doesn’t approve of Mr. Biden’s job as president. “According to its latest bipartisan poll, conducted Jan. 14-18, Mr. Biden’s job approval rating stood at 43% approve and 54% disapprove. A stunning 72% of respondents believed the country is on the wrong track, while 22% said it’s headed in the right direction,” Roll Call noted.

And NBC’s pollster drew a harsh response on one question. “Compared to what you expected when Joe Biden took office, do you feel that he has done better than expected, worse than you expected, or just about as you expected?”

Worse than expected was the resounding winner. Just 5% said better, and 36% said worse. NBC noted that it’s “the weakest number recorded on this question in NBC history.”

“On every measure tested pre-inaugural, President Biden has slipped by double digits,” the liberal network said.

With inflation and the crime rate soaring, it doesn’t look good for Mr. Biden. And it seems each poll is worse than the last. 

But then again, there’s still room for Mr. Biden to sink further into the muck. Perhaps by Election Day 2024, he can get down to a 0% approval rating — and all he’s gotta do is just keep doing what he’s doing.

• Joseph Curl covered the White House and politics for a decade for The Washington Times. He can be reached at josephcurl@gmail.com and on Twitter @josephcurl.