US President Joe Biden / AFP
July 1, 2022: A vast majority of Americans across party lines are unhappy with their nation, the immediate bad news for the sitting president and prolonged problem that future governments need to address.
In an AP-NORC survey released two days ago, 85% of US adults say things in their country are heading in the wrong direction, with just 14% thinking otherwise. That was a substantial increase of general pessimism from May, when 78% of American adults thought their country was going the wrong way and 21% sounding optimistic.
With midterm elections months away, 92% of Republicans and 78% of Democrats are dissatisfied. That was the highest number of unhappy Democrats since Joe Biden took office.
On the economy, 79% (67% among Democrats) called it poor.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll, also released Wednesday, finds rising discontent, specifically among Democrats after the US Supreme Court’s anti-abortion ruling. Interestingly but not so surprisingly, Republicans’ discontent, while still substantial, has dropped a little.
In this Reuters/Ipsos poll, 62% of Democrats say that things in the country are off on the wrong track, up from 49% the prior week. By contrast, 86% of Republicans say the same, down slightly from 94% a week earlier.
Americans’ views of Biden, meanwhile, remain quite negative. A CNN Poll of Polls average of surveys taken in the second half of June finds that 38% of Americans approved of the job he’s doing, with 57% disapproving, similar to his ratings earlier in the month. This can’t be good for a president whose main enemy is Donald Trump, who has made even some Republicans shake their heads but who is very ferociously popular among bitter Americans.
In the AP-NORC poll, 28% of US adults approve of Biden’s economic performance _ his lowest rating on the economy to date in that survey _ 36% approve of his performance on gun policy and 53% approve of the way he’s handled the coronavirus pandemic. Again, it was impossible to fail on the pandemic which seems to be easing under his reign, and his poor rating on gun control was understandable as well considering the fact that memories of recent tragedies were still fresh.
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