America's Talking - Biden Approval Rating Hits New Low at 34%

Episode Date: December 23, 2023

President Joe Biden's approval rating has hit a new low on the eve of 2024, when the president will seek a second term in the White House, according to a new poll. Monmouth University on Monday released the poll, which show's Biden's approval rating has dropped to 34% approval, the lowest rating Monmouth has collected since Biden became president. The same poll shows Biden has 61% disapproval rating, the highest since Biden took office. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to America in Focus. I'm Cole McNeely, gentle manager of America's Talking Network. Joining me today on this year episode of America and Focus, the last American Focus before Christmas this year, is the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief Casey Harper, Casey, Merry Christmas. Anything special going on in the Harper household? Merry Christmas, Cole. It is a special Christmas for us. We have the family in town, excited to open some presents, spend some good family time. and not have to answer any emails from you or Dan for a few days. Well, and I hope that was my gift this year. Casey, this is, correct me if I'm wrong, but your son, first Christmas, right? That's correct. Yeah, anything special happening with your little boy?

Well, you know, it is special time. He's obsessed with the Christmas star, and he tried to open a present this morning. I can't fault him for that. So it's very exciting. You know, you kind of, I don't know, having kids has showed me. the reason for Christmas, I think. I mean, of course, there's the spiritual reason in which I do believe in, but you realize that all the traditions and all that. Yeah. Well, you know, what I mean is you do all these traditions and you realize, like, they're way more fun when you have kids because they love it.

They kind of, something that maybe has become a little tiresome or just the same thing over and over. To a kid, it's fresh and new and they're so excited and it brings the joy back into it. So I love that. What about you? What do you do for Christmas? Family Christmases across the board. No baby like Casey Harper. So I am. Any announcements to make? No, no announcement to make. Oh, okay.

You know, Casey, unlike you, I was not struggling to find the purpose of Christmas, you know. So I'll have to click that. You already had commercialism. So commercialism was yet. You get it. You get it. Yeah. Anyway.

So, no, I'm excited for Christmas. And, you know, it doesn't look like it's going to be a white Christmas for much of the United States or much of anybody. I think it'd be pretty warm, but otherwise, I think it's going to be a grand old time. You know who's not having a good Christmas today, Cole? And that's President Joe Biden when he looked at his latest approval ratings. Am I right? Man, you are right. That is a heck of a transition there, Casey.

And let's get into this. So what we're actually here to talk about, the news of the day. President Joe Biden, his approval rating has been slowly declining from when he entered office. and a new poll came out this week. You know, Eve of 2024, not looking great for the president, Monmouth University on Monday, released the poll, shows Biden's approval ratings dropped to 34% on approval, and that is the lowest that has been collected from them since he took office. Casey, there's a couple big things that are part of that number as to why is approval rating so low.

But, you know, again, this is not great as we're heading into, you know, an election year, right, for sitting president to have a 34% approval rating. Yeah, it's a record low from on mouth, which is a respected poll on election issues in particular. You know, I mean, go through some of these approval ratings on different issues. And, you know, for instance, about two out of three people disapprove of Biden's handling of immigration. That's 69%. Inflation, he has 68% disapproving, you know, climate change, 54%. jobs and unemployment, 53% disapproval, and energy infrastructure, 52% disapprove. So, you know,

there's a couple key thing, interesting things to point out about that. One, some of those issues that he has a very high disapproval rating on consistently poll as the most important issues to voters. So inflation has consistently polled in recent years as a top issue for voters, as has jobs, the economy, unemployment, that category of the economy has always pull. is a top issue, actually. And then, and so he has very high disapproval on both of those. And then it's also interesting that issues that might traditionally be considered really important to Democrats, like climate change, an issue that Democrat voters always say that they trust Democrats more on climate change. He still has, as the Democratic president, a 54% disapproval rating. So even with

his own party, and that could be some independents who care about climate change, but are not particularly partisan, are not happy with Biden. I feel like he hasn't, you know, taken the right angle on all this. Of course, on inflation, inflation is stored almost, you know, about 20% since Biden took office and wages have not kept up with that. And all of the other polling, if you look at other polling, just about the economy in general before I hand it back to you all, shows that Americans really, whether you look at the, you know, the GDP and how that is or what the official inflation number is, Americans

largely say that they're not doing great. Forty-four percent of Americans say they are struggling to remain where they are financially. And a lot of Democrats, you know, in the administration, have touted the fact that inflation is slowed down, which is true. Inflation is really not rising at nearly the rate that it was before. And it's pretty much back to a normal rate of increase. But those prices are still much higher than they were a couple years ago, right? Like, the prices haven't gone down. And so, sure, they're not increasing anymore, but they're still 20% higher than they were just a couple years ago. So, you know, I think the economy, the higher prices, Americans still feel that. And they really just haven't forgiven, haven't forgiven Biden for that yet.

Well, and you can't help but think when you look at the number in terms of hitting a new low, the kind of, you know, conflict. I'm not sure if there's a real name for it, but happening in Israel, Gaza Strip, that has caused a lot of strife on the left wing of the Democratic Party as well. So that, I mean, that's another chunk that probably, you know, took him down to as low as, yeah, there's kind of the inflation. I think there's no way to win on the wars. Like, even if, like, I think if we got attacked, when we get attacked or something, you know, approval for president goes up. But foreign wars, whether it's like people just don't get tired of it pretty quickly. You know, the riot is really upset about Ukraine. The left is upset about Israel. And so it's just hard to win on those foreign war issues, I think. Yeah. Well, you know, again, it. It's one of those situations where the base of,

Jill Biden's base in the Democratic Party is not the far left, right? I mean, it's just not. And so when you see those situations where you kind of see these dropping approval ratings, again, 34%. I think a lot of times it's not a huge indicator of what's going to happen in like the 24 election, for example. I mean, the election cycle stuff will all start to heat up and, you know, it'll all change and people will, you know, kind of start to filter in wherever they see fit. But at this moment, a snapshot in time, a concern for President Biden in terms

of reelection likelihood, and you have to sit there and think that this, probably, again, I'm guessing, but the far left wing being on. happy with President Biden over, you know, what's happening in the Middle East, especially. You know, that could keep people from coming out to, you know, the polls, right? Yeah, yeah, enthusiasm is huge. And Biden has never been big on enthusiasm. I think the reason he had such a big turnout last time was really anti-Trump enthusiasm. Trump generates enthusiasm on both sides.

People love him or they hate him and they're really passionate. And him running, we've seen crazy turnouts, both for and against him. And so Biden was able to capture that last time. If Trump's the nominee again, it'll be interesting. I don't think it's a lot harder to run against Trump as the answer to Trump when you're an incumbent. Because Biden's answer last time was like, hey, guys, I'm going to come and clean this up. I'm from the good old days of politics when things weren't so crazy. But since Biden's been in, a lot of things have been kind of crazy.

He has his own corruption scandal and allegations. He has the economy not doing great. Now there's foreign wars all of a sudden. So for him to come in and say, I'm going to return us back to the good old days. of nostalgic American politics of the 2000s, it doesn't have, it's not going to have that same ring. And it's, I think it's going to be harder to make that pitch against Trump in that sense. Yeah, I think you're right on that one.

So again, President Biden struggling with the approval ratings at this moment in time as we head into 2024. And again, right as we're on the door set up at 2024, Christmas coming up here in a couple days, everybody over here at the Center Square and Franklin News Foundation once wish all of our listeners, a Merry Christmas in case. I will even wish you a very Merry Christmas. Yes, Merry Christmas, cool. Thank you.

Listeners keep up with this story and more keep up with all of our election coverage in 2024 at thecenter square.com. For Casey Harper, I'm Cole McNeely. Please subscribe and thanks for listening to America Unfocus. Are you tired of news that puts politics over people? At the nonprofit Franklin News Foundation, we believe in putting people over politics by delivering nonpartisan news and audio. content that serves you, the American taxpayer. With Franklin News Foundation, you can read fact-based state-focused news for free at thecentersquare.com. You can listen to civil, balanced conversations between policy experts through our podcast network at

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