Poll: Biden’s approval dips to lowest of presidency

President Joe Biden’s approval rating dipped to the lowest point of his presidency in May, a new poll shows, with deepening pessimism emerging among members of his own Democratic Party.

Only 39 percent of U.S. adults approve of Biden’s performance as president, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research, dipping from already negative ratings a month earlier.

Overall, only about 2 in 10 adults say the U.S. is heading in the right direction or the economy is good, both down from about 3 in 10 a month earlier. Those drops were concentrated among Democrats, with just 33 percent within the president’s party saying the country is headed in the right direction, down from 49 percent in April.

Of particular concern for Biden ahead of the midterm elections, his approval among Democrats stands at 73 percent, a substantial drop since earlier in his presidency. In AP-NORC polls conducted in 2021, Biden’s approval rating among Democrats never dropped below 82 percent.

The findings reflect a widespread sense of exasperation in a country facing a cascade of challenges ranging from inflation, gun violence, and a sudden shortage of baby formula to a persistent pandemic.

Republicans have not been warm to Biden for a while. Less than 1 in 10 approve of the president or his handling of the economy, but that’s no different from last month.

Overall, two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy. That rating is largely unchanged over the last few months, though elevated slightly since the first two months of the year.

But there are signs that the dissatisfaction with Biden on the economy has deepened. Just 18 percent of Americans say Biden’s policies have done more to help than hurt the economy, down slightly from 24 percent in March. Fifty-one percent say they’ve done more to hurt than help, while 30 percent say they haven’t made much difference either way.

The percentage of Democrats who say Biden’s policies have done more to help dipped from 45 percent to 37 percent, though just 18 percent say they’ve done more to hurt; 44 percent say they’ve made no difference.

Some Democrats blame other forces for inflation.

Manuel Morales, an internet service technician in Moline, Illinois, thinks the pandemic and war in Ukraine have had a far bigger impact than Biden’s decisions. But the 58-year-old Democrat is now questioning the benefits of Biden’s biggest legislative achievement, the American Rescue Plan, and its stimulus checks.

“It helped a lot of people, but,“Morales said, “people did not want to go back to work.”

Morales faults Biden on another area of persistent vulnerability to the president — immigration.

Only 38 percent back Biden on immigration, and Morales is disappointed at the scenes of migrants continuing to cross the southern border. Though he himself is a Mexican immigrant, Morales thinks the U.S. needs to more stringently control its border to have a hope of legalizing deserving migrants who are in the country illegally.

Also, Morales said, there have to be limits. “It’s impossible to bring the whole of Central America and Mexico into this country,” he said.

Overall, 45 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s handling of the U.S. relationship with Russia, while 54 percent disapprove. That’s held steady each month since the war in Ukraine began. Seventy-three percent of Democrats and 15 percent of Republicans approve.

The new poll shows just 21 percent of Americans say they have “a great deal of confidence” in Biden’s ability to handle the situation in Ukraine; 39 percent say they have some confidence and 39 percent say they have hardly any.