New polling from CNN finds a boost to the public perspective on President Joe Biden following widespread Democratic victories in the midterm elections, in which the party held onto control of the Senate, kept Republicans at an only slim majority in the House, and prevailed in high-profile races for governor in states like Arizona, Michigan, and Pennsylvania.
A full 46 percent of overall respondents expressed approval of Biden’s job performance in the new CNN polling, which was conducted earlier this month. That level of approval is five percentage points higher than the approval seen in polling done by the same source in late October of this year. The portion of registered voters expressing support for Biden’s job performance is even higher in the new CNN poll, at 48 percent. Besides several pieces of legislation supporting the job market alongside environmental and healthcare concerns like the Inflation Reduction Act, there have also recently been drops in average gas prices. The Biden team has taken direct action on the issue through releases of some of the stockpiles in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a move meant to boost supplies and ease costs. The president and his team have also pressured energy companies to keep prices lower amid concerns about these firms taking advantage of recent economic conditions to rake in profits.
The new CNN polling also asked respondents for their views about the economy, and many expressed worries. A full 53 percent indicated they believe economic conditions are getting worse, and many also indicated they were changing their habits in response to economic developments. A full 71 percent indicated they’ve made cuts to nonessential spending to better afford necessary costs, which is eight percentage points higher than the portion who said so in CNN polling from earlier this year.
The job market has continued posting gains well into the hundreds of thousands a month in defiance of economists’ recorded expectations, and the overall unemployment rate is also remaining low, at 3.7 percent in November according to recent figures. In contrast to the jobs for Americans Biden and his team are seeking to support, plans by House Republicans to investigate Hunter Biden or some related bit of supposed corruption aren’t going to solve Americans’ real concerns about meeting their financial needs. They’re engaging in a farce — at Americans’ expense. Trump is doing more poorly than Biden on a related metric: favorability, which is the polling conducted for political figures not currently in office. According to an average from the elections data and analysis site FiveThirtyEight, only about 40 percent of respondents indicate a favorable view of Donald — over two percentage points lower than the average indicating approval for Biden’s job performance, according to the same source. It’s not like Trump is some overwhelmingly popular figure.
