Ratings nosedive as Biden & Democrats face litmus test in November

It must indeed be quite frustrating for the White House and the man sitting at the Oval Office; almost nothing seems to work.

Joseph Biden’s approval ratings on any given day in the recent past are between 41 and 40 per cent at best or at 39 per cent at worst.

Only some 42 per cent of the people approve of his foreign policy, including in Ukraine, his worst showing is reserved for the economy, where his support is pegged at 33 per cent and a disapproval of 63 per cent. Only 28 per cent of those surveyed in a recent poll maintained that the President showed a “great deal” of ability to respond to the war between Russia and Ukraine and manage the crisis.

In the Washington scene for five decades, President Biden is generally considered as a likeable person. But his personal image has also taken a beating in recent times—37 per cent positive and 46 per cent negative, according to one survey, with Biden being much more of the motivating factor for Republicans and Republican-leaning Americans than for the Democrats.

If 71 per cent of those in the Grand Old Party, including those leaning conservatives are against Biden, only 46 per cent of Democrats look at their vote for the President.

Also read: A lot more at stake for Biden & Harris at Howard than rodents

The raft of polls in recent weeks has expectedly set off the alarm bells in the Democratic camp, where supporters of the President and strategists shudder at the thought of Biden having to sit through two years in the Oval Office with a Republican majority in Congress, which many see as a distinct possibility on November 8, 2022. Traditionally the argument has been that the Party occupying the White House position loses in an off-year midterm election; and this time around that eerie feeling has set in even before the first vote has been cast; with six months to go.

All 438 members in the House of Representatives are in the fray, and 34 Senate seats are up for grabs, 14 Democrats and 20 Republicans. In the present Congress, Democrats have a 12-seat advantage in the House and it is a 50-50 tie in the Senate, where since January 2021, Democrats have had to lean on Vice-President Kamala Harris to cast the tie-breaking vote on major legislations. This time on November 8 the Republicans need only One seat in the Senate to get back into the majority; and the present Minority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is very confident of pulling off wins not just in the Senate but also in the House.

The White House has not publicly pushed the panic button, but it is not too difficult to see the anxiety amongst top aides to the President who are simply bewildered — whether it has to do with Biden seemingly uniting the world against Russia or in the confirmation of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, an African American woman with brilliant legal credentials as an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Three Republican Senators voted with Democrats to make this possible without the assistance of Vice-President Harris. Democrats are hoping that the elevation of Judge Jackson will have a positive impact on President Biden’s standing within the African American community that currently is around only 60 per cent. But this remains to be seen.

Also read: Biden and Democrats are in denial and whistling in the dark

Foreign policy has rarely mattered in American elections and that too in mid-term polls where the focus is invariably on domestic and local issues such as voting rights, health care, education and guns, to mention a few. In the case of Ukraine President Biden has found that despite the strident tone since the State of the Union Address this January and his varied characterisations of the Russian President Vladimir Putin as a war criminal, butcher and a man without a soul, all these have not mattered in opinion polls where he has barely moved upwards of one or two points. And sitting some 5000 miles away Putin’s popularity amongst his people is put at 81 per cent, or twice as that of President Biden.

The midterms may be six months or so away but it is clear that Democrats and Biden need miracles, not prayers, if they are to hold on to the House and improve their position in the Senate. President Biden and his supporters are unable to do two things: reign in dissident Democrats who are unwilling to fully toe the White House line as policies did not fall under the “progressive” categorization; and in a failure to flag the achievements on the economic front and dealing with the coronavirus that had taken a debilitating toll under the previous administration. In foreign policy, the unfolding of events in Afghanistan and Ukraine are not the exclusive making of President Biden. The American withdrawal from Afghanistan may have been clumsy last August but the mess was clear by November 2001.

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Likewise, for the last twenty years, Russia and Putin have been clamouring for security guarantees against any eastward expansion of the NATO, only to find Washington and capitals of Europe either ignoring the legitimate concerns of Moscow or deliberately sowing the seeds of fantasy in countries dreaming of becoming a part of the Western alliance. For a person who is seen as an expert in foreign affairs, President Biden had failed to see how Moscow could accept a nuclear NATO-Ukraine in its front yard when Washington in 1962 refused to have any truck with Missiles in its Cuban backyard!

(The author was a former senior journalist in Washington covering North America and the United Nations)

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