San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Poll: Biden approval rating steady after document discovery
WASHINGTON — More U.S. adults disapprove than approve of the way President Joe Biden has handled the discovery of classified documents at his home and former office, a new poll shows, but that seems to have had little impact on his overall approval rating.
The new poll from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds 41 percent of Americans say they approve of how Biden is handling his job as president, about the same as the 43 percent who said that in December. In the new poll, 77 percent of Democrats approve of how Biden is handling his job, while 91 percent of Republicans disapprove, both little changed since late last year.
Biden, who will address a joint session of Congress in his State of the Union address next week, needs all the support he can muster as he strategizes his expected reelection campaign, and has been working to focus voters on his agenda and big legislative wins instead of the documents flap.
Biden’s attorneys discovered classified items in a locked closet in November, as they cleared out his office at the Penn Biden Center, a think tank where he briefly worked after he left government. The records were turned over to Justice Department officials. The discovery touched off a special counsel investigation and additional documents have turned up at his home in Wilmington, Del., in searches by his lawyers and by the FBI. Agents also searched Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., and his former office at the Penn Biden Center.
More people disapprove than approve of his handling of situation since the classified documents were found, 39 percent to 23 percent, Another 36 percent say they neither approve nor disapprove. Democrats are more likely to approve than disapprove, 44 percent to 15 percent, with 40 percent saying they have no opinion either way.
A majority of Republicans, 68 percent, say they disapprove, with 6 percent saying they approve and 24 percent expressing no opinion either way. Republicans are also somewhat more likely than Democrats to say they’ve heard at least some about the situation, 71 percent to 63 percent.
“To me, it seems like he’s doing the right things, and this happens, people have these documents, Trump and now Mike Pence, too,” said Candace Porth, 72, of Phoenix, a Biden supporter. “It happens. I think people who are supportive of Biden, they understand.”
In follow-up interviews, some poll respondents said they distinguish between Biden voluntarily turning over documents and the behavior of former President Donald Trump, who refused to hand over hundreds of documents, prompting the FBI to raid his home. Still, many are troubled that leaders can’t seem to properly handle sensitive information.
“I feel like it is a big problem in general,” said Jenifer Hudgins, 36, of Gadsden, Ala., a Democrat who voted for Biden. “I do not feel like any official should have classified documents in their possession, especially at personal residences. It does make you wonder why they have these documents at their residences.”
Trump is facing a special counsel investigation into his retention of several hundred classified documents and other government records at his Mara-Lago estate in Florida — and his resistance to giving them up, which led to an FBI warrant and nighttime search to seize them last August.
Banty Patel, a 46-year-old Republican from New Brunswick, N.J., said it seems like the same problem to him, but Trump and Biden are being treated very differently.
“I think it looks worse for Joe Biden. He went on the news and said he’d always comply with the FBI and then later they discovered he had documents, too.”
Most Americans have paid at least some attention to the ongoing investigation into classified documents, but they’re not necessarily following it closely. The poll shows that 28 percent say they’ve read or heard a lot about the situation, while another 35 percent say they’ve heard some about it but not a lot. An additional 37 percent say they’ve heard little or nothing about it.
On Wednesday, the FBI searched Biden’s home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., but did not find any classified documents there, according to his personal attorney. The Bidens purchased that home, which overlooks a state park adjacent to the beach, in June 2017, months after he left the vice presidency.
Biden has said he was surprised by the initial discovery of the documents. His lawyers have described his mishandling of the documents as a “mistake.”