‘The president’s decline is alarming’: Biden trapped in coronavirus malaise

quote:

---

In a focus group last week, Pennsylvania Democrats one after another articulated the issue vexing top White House aides, party operatives in Virginia and voters in Georgia: Why isn’t President Joe Biden’s diminished job rating rebounding?

All nine participants from Tuesday’s session gave Biden C- grades or lower. And their answers circled back to a similar point: The pandemic and the many ways it continues to hinder normal life is souring their views of Biden.

---

quote:

---

“There is a malaise,” said Sarah Longwell, a moderate Republican strategist who became a vocal supporter of Biden in 2020, and led the focus group of Democratic voters. “People don’t feel like their lives have been improved. They did sort of feel that promises aren’t being kept.”

---

quote:

---

But Biden’s standing with Americans has plummeted, with his average approval rating plunging by nearly 15 points since late June. He's seen a drop among Democrats and even more with Republicans, but the decline has been particularly steep among independent voters.

---

quote:

---

Biden and Democrats in Washington “are in a morass of fighting with each over bills that nobody knows what’s in,” Longwell added. “It just looks like a cluster.”

---

quote:

---

“The president’s decline is alarming. It’s serious,” Rosenberg said. “But it also can be reversed. And it isn't going to be reversed by passing these two bills alone. He has to get Covid under control.”

---

quote:

---

Pandemic fatigue is growing among Biden’s core voters elsewhere, too. In a nearly 100-page study of 40 so-called “gettable” Democrats and independents done in Clark County, Nev., last month, researchers found that voters were “anxious, tired, and exhausted.” The researchers added that voters “looked at the government’s [Covid] stumbles along the way and shrugged their collective shoulders.”

“I see them as flat on their backs,” Gretchen Barton, research director at the Democratic-aligned nonprofit Future Majority, which conducted the study with liberal advocacy group Way to Win, told POLITICO.

---

quote:

---

It isn’t the virus’ resurgence alone that’s hindered Biden. While Afghanistan and the border have largely faded from the news cycle, polls show they contributed to his slide, especially in how voters judged his competency in the job. In Georgia, Democrats said they remained confused and upset by Biden’s decision-making on Afghanistan, migrants at the border, and the intraparty feuding around his economic agenda. “Disappointed” was a word used by most of the Black and white voters who spoke to POLITICO in the metro Atlanta area when describing Biden’s time in office.

---

quote:

---

Sylvia Bernstein, a 71-year-old Biden voter from Atlanta, said Biden had “made horrible mistakes,” particularly on Afghanistan and refugees. “And now this budget that he’s trying to pass — $3 trillion — I don’t see that happening,” said Bernstein, who is white. “And I don’t think he’s gotten much support from other Democrats. Everybody seems to be floundering around.”

---