The polls have been unkind to President Joe Biden for some time now, but he at least appeared to continuously have support with his handling of the Wuhan coronavirus and the pandemic. It's still worth stressing, however, that those numbers nevertheless dipped considerably, in that Biden went from a healthy margin of support in the double digits, to the single digits.
According to the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday, though, Biden no longer has a majority of support when it comes to COVID. In fact, a plurality of respondents, at 38 percent, say they "strongly disapprove" of how Biden is handling the issue. Asked another way, a plurality of respondents, at 42 percent, similarly say he has done a "poor" job of handling the virus.
Predictably, the poll was overall bad news for Biden. He has a 53 percent disapproval rating and a 44 percent approval rating.
Morning Consult has also done a deep dive on "The Return to Normal: Views on the Pandemic," which was last updated on Wednesday. One of the "Key Trends" highlights how Biden is doing better on this issue than he used to be:
Biden’s Net Approval on Coronavirus Climbs Slightly: A week after net approval for President Joe Biden’s handling of COVID-19 hit an all-time low, the share who approve of his performance minus the share who disapprove ticked up to minus 3. The 5-point climb was driven by independents (minus 13 from minus 29).
A trend of January 6, 2022 shows Biden with a -2 rating among all voters, after facing a low of -8 on December 30. On January 6, he faced a net approval of 67 from Democrats, and -13 from Independents, as well as -72 from Republicans. Other than the -29 from Independents, as mentioned above, the numbers for the other demographics were similar.
A year ago tells a much different story, though, as on January 23, 2021, Biden had a net approval of 29 from all voters, which included 85 from Democrats, 15 from Independents, and -41 from Republicans.
There's similarly a very different picture when it comes to comparing this most recent POLITICO/Morning Consult poll to one conducted January 22-January 25, 2021. A plurality of all registered voters, at 32 percent, said last year that Biden was doing an "excellent" job in handling the virus and overall, 55 percent of respondents approved, while 35 percent disapproved, and 11 percent responded "don't know/no opinion."
And Biden's handling of the virus is hardly the only issue where he's underwater with this most recent POLITICO/Morning Consult poll. In fact, he's underwater or at a tie when it comes to most of the 14 issues that respondents are asked about. The only issue where he has a higher overall approval rating is the 43 percent of respondents who strongly approve (16 percent) or approve (27 percent) of how he is "Protecting Medicare and Social Security." While 42 percent disapprove, with 13 percent saying they (somewhat disapprove) and 29 percent saying they strongly disapprove, it's worth emphasizing that broken down by individual response, a plurality still strongly disapprove. Fifteen percent selected "don't know/no opinion."
The only other issues where a larger plurality of respondents say they "strongly disapprove" of how Biden is handling the issue in question are the economy (40 percent) and immigration (42 percent).
The poll also touched upon several other issues, including voting legislation and the Democrats' desperate power move in attempting to nuke the filibuster to get bills passed that would amount to a federal takeover of elections. I covered that part of the poll earlier on Wednesday as well, since it came up during a media call with Heritage Action for America's Executive Director Jessica Anderson and Honest Elections Project's Executive Director Jason Snead.
This most recent poll, conducted January 8-January 9, 2022 involved 2,000 registered voters and a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was not the only one released today. As Spencer covered, Quinnipiac released their poll too, which actually had Biden at a 33 percent approval rating.
Both polls are included in the RealClearPolitics (RCP) poll average tracker. For December 17-January 11, Biden is at a 41.9 percent approval rating and a 53.1 percent disapproval rating. FiveThirtyEight also includes both and similarly has Biden at a 42.2 percent approval rating and a 51.6 percent disapproval rating.