With less than a month to go until the midterm elections, President Joe Biden’s approval ratings are in the dumper.
Now, a new poll shows just how bad things really are.
Fewer than 1 in 4 people (24%) think America is going in the right direction, the Ipsos poll of 1,003 people found. Sixty-three percent think the U.S. is on the wrong track.
But there was one section of the survey that was shocking: Biden’s approval rating is less than 50% on every single one of the top 10 issues Americans most care about.
COVID-19 — 47%
Environment — 44%
Racial Inequality — 42%
Employment/Jobs — 38%
Unifying Country — 37%
International Trade — 37%
Taxation — 34%
Economy — 33%
Immigration — 33%
Corruption — 31%
And Americans weighed in on what they most wanted Biden to focus on.
Economy — 55%
Employment/Jobs — 24%
Immigration — 21%
Environment — 16%
Unifying Country — 15%
Corruption — 12%
COVID-19 — 9%
Racial Inequality — 8%
International Trade — 2%
Other — 5%
“The economy has been at the top of Americans’ list for a full year now,” the pollsters wrote. “All partisans agree that the economy is the top issue, with Republicans (40%) most likely to say so, followed by independents (30%), and then Democrats (22%).”
Meanwhile, another poll found that economic issues greatly outweigh concerns about rights in the midterm elections.
The Monmouth University poll also found less than 50% approval rating on 11 of the top 12 issues.
Inflation is “extremely or very important” for 82% of Americans, but Biden’s approval rating on the issue is just 30%. Crime is second at 72%, but Biden’s handling is 32%. And immigration comes in at 67% for voters, but the president’s approval rating is 31%.
“Democrats are all over the place when it comes to their key issues. This makes it difficult for the party to create a cohesive messaging strategy to motivate its base. Republicans, on the other hand, just have to hammer away at rising prices and ‘the wolf is at the door’ to get their voters riled up,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.
“A major problem for Democrats is their base messaging doesn’t hold as much appeal for independents as the GOP issue agenda does. Even though truly persuadable independents are a rather small group these days, this small difference can have a major impact given the expectation that congressional control will hinge on a handful of very close contests,” Murray said.
The president’s approval rating often signals how well his party is going to do in the midterm elections. For instance, Bill Clinton’s stood at 46% in 1994 when Democrats lost 54 seats in the House and eight in the Senate. And Barack Obama was at 45% in 2010 when his party lost 63 House seats and six Senate seats.
And that’s the really bad news. Ipsos puts Biden’s approval rating at just 40%.
One last poll may be a harbinger of what’s to come. Athan Koutsiouroumbas of Long Nyquist, a consulting firm based in Pennsylvania, analyzed a recent ABC News/Washington Post survey that showed “suburban and exurban congressional districts favor Republican candidates” by a 21-point margin.