Biden’s numbers and the price of gasoline
IT doesn’t sound like much, but President Joe Biden is doing better on Main Street. His overall approval ratings have been slowly improving since August, when gasoline prices finally settled down and Biden won congressional approval for the Inflation Reduction Act.
According to a fourth-quarter poll conducted by CNBC and Survey Monkey, Biden’s approval rating went up for the first time in the eight quarters of his presidency. He’s up to — OK, this doesn’t sound great — 34 percent among small-business owners. He stopped a streak of six straight quarterly declines.
In the poll, Biden’s approval rating rose just slightly among Democrats and independents, with 83 percent of Democrats and 31 percent of independents telling pollsters they approve of Biden this quarter, compared with 81 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of independents last quarter.
The shifts are incremental, but they add up to a positive move in Biden’s direction. Among the general public, the Cnbc/surveymonkey poll found Biden’s approval rating up from 41 percent to 45 percent.
“I will ensure Joe Biden does not receive four more years,” former President Donald Trump said in his announcement speech. “In two years, the Biden administration has destroyed the U.S. economy. Destroyed,” he claimed. Not so fast. Small-business owners, at least, are more confident now than they were last summer that they can survive an economic downturn. Falling gasoline prices help. Good employment numbers help, so long as they last. And so does something else.
People like Biden. That’s what my friend John Kasich, the former governor of Ohio says about the president, and I think he’s right. When I was doing politics, and Biden was running against my candidate, we called him “Uncle Joe.” It was a nice nickname, a reflection of the fact that he was considered to be a decent and honorable man, a man whose life had been touched by tragedy that gave him a sort of gravitas.
As it happened, my colleagues were the ones who knocked him out of that race by circulating a tape of him giving the same speech as the British Labor candidate, a silly stunt that blew up in the pre-viral way. It didn’t stop me from liking and respecting Biden. I still think of him as Uncle Joe.
And here’s my prediction: Of course, Biden is running again. He has had a remarkably successful presidency, particularly when you consider narrow margins in the House and none in the Senate. He has earned the right to run again.
Because frankly, can anyone point to the Democrat who would do better in a general election?
We remain very much a politically divided country. But it is not Biden who is dividing us. He doesn’t get out there every day and see how he can carve out his piece of the pie. That’s what Trump does, sometimes desperately so. Biden is still trying to play to the broader electorate, not just to his base. He is not a polarizing personality. He wants to be liked by everybody, and unlike the former president, he has upside potential. He is the grown-up in the room, as the House struggles to organize and the Senate sits divided.
There is no other real power center, so there is room for support for Uncle Joe to grow. At least as long as gasoline prices stay in line.