Biden’s presidency approval numbers continue to decline after honeymoon phase ends

NEWS AND OPINION:

Wait, the honeymoon is over? Those are four little words that few leaders want to encounter.

“After a relatively strong debut in his first year in office, the honeymoon is over for President Joe Biden, as approval ratings of U.S. leadership worldwide slid at the halfway mark of his term,” reports Julie Ray, a writer and analyst for Gallup.

She has the numbers.

“A new Gallup report based on surveys in nearly 140 countries in 2022 shows that the median global approval rating of U.S. leadership stood at 41% last year. This rating is much lower than the 49% median approval measured during Biden’s first six months on the job — before the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan — and the 45% approval for his first full year in office,” Ms. Ray wrote in an analysis.

“Historically, the 41% approval rating is considerably lower than former President Barack Obama’s second-year rating of 47% but still higher than former President Donald Trump’s second year (31%) or the ratings during the last two years of George W. Bush’s presidency (38% and 34%),” she said.

The numbers are from a larger report. Find it at Gallup.com; the title is “U.S. and Germany slip, Russia stumbles on the global stage.”

It’s still the economy

Here is something for all the campaign strategists to consider. Former President Donald Trump could win back the White House in 2024 if “pocketbook” concerns are a factor for voters.

“Economic competence mattered in electoral politics” in decades past, wrote Gerald Baker, a columnist and editor at large for The Wall Street Journal.

“It’s a quaint idea now to think that things like wages, inflation, interest rates and the value of your pension savings and other assets are important measures by which those who govern us are judged. 

“But let me interrupt our compelling national conversation for a moment and ask: Is it possible that this ancient curiosity might be poised to make a comeback?” he asked.

“We can’t know what the economic situation will be like in November 2024, but we have plenty of evidence to say that, as things stand, Democrats should be in big trouble if stewardship of the economy counts at all with voters,” Mr. Baker wrote.

He then offered a complex but intriguing rationale for this idea, and cited matters related to the national debt, troubles in the banking sector and inflation on the Democratic Party’s watch.

“Democrats think they can avoid accountability for all these economic errors by making the terms of political debate about threats to ‘democracy.’ But this record of dismal financial and economic management makes me skeptical of the widely touted idea that Donald Trump can’t win next year,” Mr. Baker later said.

“The Trump calculation has always been that voters will accept the evident flaws in the man’s character and behavior as the price for turning out a party that is literally impoverishing them. The Democrats have to hope the national conversation never gets back to economics,” he said.

Those ‘early’ voters

Let’s linger with some new numbers about the public’s voting patterns in the 2022 midterm election — which appears to have more significance than previously thought, perhaps.

“Voter turnout for the 2022 U.S. congressional elections was the second highest for a nonpresidential election year since 2000, with 52.2% of the citizen voting-age population participating. And registration rates were the highest for a midterm election since 2000, with 69.1% of the citizen voting-age population registered to vote, up 2.2 percentage points from 66.9% in 2018,” according to Current Population Survey data released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

“For the 2022 election, the survey found that nearly one-third (31.8%) of all voters cast ballots by mail, up from 23.1% in 2018. Almost half (47.1%) voted before Election Day, up from 37.8% in 2018,” the Census data said.

“Among those who were registered but did not vote in the 2022 elections, the most common answer given for not voting was, ‘Too busy, conflicting work or school schedule.’ The most common way people registered to vote was at the Department of Motor Vehicles; 29.8% of respondents reported registering at their DMV,” the data said.

Ivy-covered halls

More than 90 Harvard University faculty members have joined a newly formed Council on Academic Freedom at the university to promote and defend First Amendment ideals and intellectual diversity on campus.

“I’m hoping we can restore some of the dignity and respect that universities, and Harvard in particular, used to grant unconventional thinkers, oddballs and nonconformists, who have always been the source of the most important new ideas,” computer science professor Harry Lewis told The College Fix, a student-written publication.

He is a “co-leader” on the new council.

The group itself plans to organize workshops, host guest lecturers, and teach courses, according to Harvard professor Flynn Cratty, the council’s co-leader.

“When necessary, we will also hold the university accountable so that it lives up to its stated principles. We will help ensure that campus leaders respect Harvard’s commitments to academic freedom. We will protest if those freedoms are violated. We will also provide solidarity with Harvard scholars who are threatened with penalty because of their speech,” Mr. Cratty advised.

Poll du jour

• 63% of registered U.S. voters disapprove of the way President Biden is handling the economy; 35% approve and 2% don’t know.

• 62% disapprove of the way he handles gun issues; 35% approve and 3% don’t know.

• 61% disapprove of the way he handles issues related to China; 35% approve and 3% don’t know.

• 61% disapprove of the way the president handles immigration; 36% approve and 4% don’t know.

• 53% disapprove of the way he handles the U.S. response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; 43% approve and 4% don’t know.

• 52% disapprove of the way he handles national security; 45% approve and 3% don’t know.

Source: A Fox News poll of 1,004 U.S. voters conducted April 21-24 and released Monday.

Follow Jennifer Harper on Twitter @HarperBulletin.