In polling from Quinnipiac University, the portion of the public indicating approval of Joe Biden’s job performance is up nine percentage points in just six weeks.
In polling released August 31, a full 40 percent of overall respondents indicated approval of Biden’s performance in office, while 52 percent shared disapproval. In polling from late July, Biden’s overall level of approval was at just 31 percent, which was the lowest level recorded for Biden’s approval in Quinnipiac’s numbers since he took office. Since those earlier numbers were released, a significant jump was recorded in the level of approval for Biden’s job performance among Democrats. Now, it’s 83 percent of Democrats indicating approval, but in the July numbers, it was 71 percent. That jump is no doubt the source for a lot of the overall shift. In August, Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law, a long-awaited budget reconciliation deal that included key measures like the largest single investment by the U.S. government into fighting climate change in history. Evidently, it’s going over well.
With registered voters — evidently distinct from the overall respondents whose opinions are reflected by the main Quinnipiac data, Biden’s level of job approval went up by eight percentage points from July to August. In July, 33 percent of the group approved of Biden’s job performance, and now, it’s 41 percent. Overall respondents were also specifically asked whether they approved of Biden’s handling of the economy, and Biden saw a significant jump in his approval level on that question from July to August. In July, it was just 28 percent. Now, it’s 37 percent. Biden’s somewhat recovering public image among certain groups could ease the potential downward pressure on the Democrats’ political chances heading into the midterms. In a notable surprise, Democratic candidate Mary Peltola won a special election in Alaska for the remainder of the final term of Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who held the seat for decades until his death.
The state used ranked choice voting for the election. Participating voters could select multiple choices and rank their picks, and in the event no candidate passed 50 percent in the first round of tabulations, then the last-place finisher faced elimination, with their supporters’ ballots getting appropriately reallocated according to voters’ additional selections. The last-place finisher in the first round was Republican Nick Begich III, and some 29 percent of his voters picked Peltola as their second choice, according to The Washington Post, which meant she beat the runner-up: longtime public menace Sarah Palin.
