President Joe Biden has lost support among independent voters and some moderate voters, according to recent polls.
The drop comes in light of key issues over the last few months, including a botched Afghanistan withdrawal, an open border crisis, a $3.5 trillion spending bill that has caused significant disagreement within the president’s own Democratic party, and the current administration’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to The Hill, polls from both Gallup and the Associated Press show Biden’s approval rating among independents has fallen by 24 points since his inauguration.
The Gallup poll shows that at the start of his presidency, Biden’s support among independents was at 61 percent. That number has since fallen to 37 percent. And as the Associated Press indicated Friday, Biden began his term as president with a 62 percent approval rating among independents, but that number has since dwindled to 38 percent for September.
“I think there is definitely some concern that Biden isn’t really doing the things he said he’d be doing, like making things run smoothly again after four tumultuous years,” one unnamed Democratic strategist told the Hill. “A lot of people feel like they haven’t seen much of that lately, especially if you’re not drinking the Biden Kool Aid.”
One other strategist said, “it’s all about COVID, at least right now. Some people will disagree with me but I think that’s all that really matters now. The closer he can come to bringing the country back from the brink, the better.”
The “AP-NORC poll of 1,099 adults was conducted Sept. 23-27” and has a polling margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points. And, the Gallup poll was conducted from Sept. 1-17 “with a random sample of –1,005—adults, ages 18+, living in all 50 U.S. states” and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
