Analysis: This poll number will send Democrats into a panic
(CNN)The single biggest indicator of how the 2022 midterm elections will go for the two parties is how the public thinks about President Joe Biden.
Which, ugh, if you are a Democratic candidate looking toward trying to win a race in a swing district or state come that November.
The latest bad news on that front came Thursday in a new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. Biden’s approval in the survey slid all the way to 43%, a drop of 6 points in a single month. His disapproval, not surprisingly shot up 7 points to 51%.
Those numbers for Biden — and Democrats — are bad. Obviously. But there’s another number buried in that question that should worry them even more.
And it’s this: 41% of people said they strongly disapprove of the job Biden is doing, while just 19% strongly approve of how he is handling his job as president.
What that number suggests is that there is a major passion gap between the two party bases. Democrats like Biden — some even love him. But Republicans HATE him, with 82% saying they strongly disapprove of how he is doing the job.
That sort of energy disparity between the two party bases is, if history is any guide, a recipe for disaster for Democratic candidates for Congress.
This, from Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones, is illustrative of that — ahem — point:
“In Gallup’s polling history, presidents with job approval ratings below 50% have seen their party lose 37 House seats, on average, in midterm elections. That compares with an average loss of 14 seats when presidents had approval ratings above 50%.”
Recent history affirms that trend. With his approval ratings in the low 40s (at best) then-President Donald Trump’s Republican Party got thumped in the 2018 midterms. Republicans lost 40 House seats — and their majority.
The Point: The best news for Biden and his party is that it’s September 2021, not September 2022. If his job approval numbers in a year’s time are anywhere near where they are today, Democrats will likely be facing a wave perched to come crashing down on them on Election Day.
Source: http://rss.cnn.com/~r/rss/cnn_topstories/~3/N0atnDRJoR0/index.html
