President Joe Biden’s plummeting approval rating is no secret, but the extent to which people have soured on his presidency is notable and worth keeping in mind when the 2022 midterm elections roll around.
Two separate polls detail just how poorly Biden is performing. A Quinnipiac poll of Texans found that Biden’s approval has dropped 24 points since June. Biden went from an approval rating of 45% to 32%, with his disapproval growing from 50% to 61%. In other words, his net approval there went from -5 to -29. Meanwhile, a North Carolina poll from High Point University shows Biden 10 points underwater among adults. Biden only lost North Carolina in 2020 by a 49.9%-48.6% margin.
What is more striking is Biden’s approval ratings in those polls compared to the other politicians measured. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, enjoys a positive rating of 45%, compared to just 32% disapproving. North Carolinians approve of Cooper and disapprove of Biden by double-digit margins even though both are of the same party.
Meanwhile, Biden’s sky-high disapproval rating in Texas comes despite the fact that GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has seen his approval rating go underwater for the first time since Quinnipiac began polling the state in April 2018. Abbott’s approval rating is falling and Cooper’s is comfortably high, but neither can save Biden’s flailing administration.
And this bodes ill for Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other House Democrats. As CNN’s Harry Enten noted after the 2018 midterm elections, “House Republicans’ projected national House margin (-7 points) matched Trump’s net approval rating in the exit polls (-9 points) nearly perfectly.”
Just as when former President Donald Trump didn’t have Hillary Clinton around to mask his unpopularity, Biden will (we hope) not have Trump around to mask his. Midterm elections are typically a referendum on the president, and just as voters in 2018 took out their frustrations with Trump on House Republicans, voters appear ready to do the same with Biden and his party in 2022.
