Joe Biden’s poll numbers are in the basement as we approach 2022 and the run-up to the midterms.
He’s tanked across all demographics. But it turns out that one of the categories in which he’s lost the most support is one that he desperately needs for Democrats to win — young people. Young people tend to be more to the left, so you would think that would help Biden who has been governing to the left. But according to a new analysis by The Economist conducted with polling by You Gov, those are the people who are throwing Biden over.
[A]n average of 29% of American adults under the age of 30 approve of the job Mr Biden is doing as president. But that compares with 50% who disapprove. The net rating of -21 points is the worst for any age group. Adults aged between 30 and 44 give Mr Biden a -17 rating; those aged 45 to 64 come in at -5; and among adults aged 65 and over, the president is eight points underwater. This is a sharp reversal from the beginning of the year, when young voters gave Mr Biden a net approval rating 32 points higher than older people did. And Mr Biden is falling out of favour fastest with the youngest groups.
So that works out to a -50 point drop on net approval.
Democrats are up a creek without a paddle in the midterms as I wrote about yesterday and they need all hands on deck to prevent a complete slaughter. Young people already are a bit of hit or miss for midterms, but their disapproval of Biden is likely going to make that even harder for the Democrats.
Now, part of that initial approval might have been anti-Trump support for Biden, not true support. But there’s also anger that he’s not coming across with what they want.
It’s hard to believe but some do think he’s not radical enough. Or perhaps I should say, successfully radical. Biden/his people talk radical policies — such as those in the Build Back Better bill — but then they don’t get it done. We just saw BBB likely biting the dust after the Biden team wasn’t able to meet their goal of getting it done by Christmas. So there’s a lot of anger over his failure to follow through on things like that. And these numbers may not even include all the anger over student loan debt as those repayments are about to resume. Many on the left were pushing to continue putting off the repayment on student loan debt but Biden isn’t going for that. Repayment is restarting on Feb. 1, 2022. Biden has also has failed to cancel the $10,000 in student loan debt that he promised.
Meanwhile, Biden has lost independents because of his radical moves and enormous failures like the debacle in Afghanistan. And he’s lost people across the board because of inflation — with only 28 percent approving and 69 percent disapproving — and his handling of crime, with only 36 percent approving of how he is handling that.
So when you’re looking for folks who will turn out to support Biden and the Democrats in 2022, right now we may be looking at a whole lot of empty.