The latest round of discussions by President Joe Biden and his team about eliminating student debt is an obvious attempt to pander to younger voters who are dissatisfied with his performance. And it’s inflation that is driving that dissatisfaction.
The University of California Institute of Governmental Studies and the Los Angeles Times released a poll showing 60% of California voters give Biden a failing grade on inflation, with his overall approval in the state at a pedestrian 50%. But the votes punishing Biden the most for inflation are the state’s younger, more liberal voting bloc. Just 21% of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 approve of Biden’s handling of the problem.
Biden has tried to downplay inflation’s damage, insisting that it would go away quickly, that it was transitory, and then that it was actually the fault of the greedy meat industry. Now, he is blaming Russian President Vladimir Putin, even though “Putin’s price hike” somehow stretches all the way back to the 2020 election, 15 months before Russia invaded Ukraine.
“It’s Putin’s price hike.”
Sure, Jen. pic.twitter.com/5geGSzK6kh
— Brad Polumbo ??⚽️ ?️? (@brad_polumbo) April 11, 2022
An ABC News poll found that a majority of people place a “great deal” or a “good amount” of the blame on Biden and the Democratic Party’s policies for the increase in gas prices. As Aaron Blake wrote for the Washington Post, polls from Quinnipiac and the Kaiser Family Foundation show that Biden’s “Putin price hike” talking point isn’t helping him much. Now, he’s lost even the young liberal voters in California.
It’s tempting to say that Biden has hit rock bottom, but his numbers have continued to drop with no end in sight. If he can’t keep the benefit of the doubt from the most liberal generation of liberal California voters, the Democratic Party is in for an electoral disaster. It’s no less than what Biden and the party deserves.
