President Joe Biden is struggling in the polls a year before voters decide whether to give him a second term in the Oval Office. And the president's biggest enemies are the American people who supported him the most at the beginning of his term.
Biden's approval rating is currently at the lowest level of his presidency, according to basic polling averages*. However, he wasn't always so popular. At the time of his swearing-in, Biden's approval rating started in the low 50s, but fell below 50% in the summer of 2021. It appeared to be over, coinciding with the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Delta variant of COVID-19. Biden's honeymoon period.
Biden's approval rating continued to decline for nearly a year, bottoming out at nearly 40% in the summer of 2022, when inflation reached its highest level in 40 years. But the trend picked up again that fall, shortly after the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization overturning federal abortion rights. Still, the president's approval rating remained in the low 40s for the remainder of 2022 and the first few months of 2023, and by this summer began to decline again.
But which demographic is Biden losing the most support from? We looked at a crosstab of his approval ratings to find out. Biden's approval ratings have consistently been highest among black Americans and lowest among white Americans. But while white Americans have been lukewarm toward Biden for the majority of his administration, the president is rapidly losing support among people of color. This is consistent with what other sources have found. The latest New York Times/Siena College poll finds signs that Biden is losing support among black voters. And Democrats have long warned of signs that Latino voters are turning toward Republicans.
Biden began his presidency with an average approval rating of 86 percent among Black Americans, higher than any other racial group. But by July 2022, that number had dropped by 23 percentage points to 63 percent. That said, his approval ratings among Black Americans rose slightly ahead of the midterm elections, unlike the other three racial groups we looked at. But since early 2023, his approval rating has fallen again to 60 percent, the lowest approval rating among black Americans ever during his presidency.
For pollster Terrence Woodbury, CEO of Democratic-leaning pollster HIT Strategies, the reason for that trend seems clear: “The sharp decline that occurred through 2021 and The difference in stabilization starting in 2022 is [Black voters] “I’ll say it again,” Woodbury said. “When we campaign, they like what we have to say.”
But for Woodbury, whose work focuses on black Americans who are cynical about voting, the generational gap is a major concern. While younger Democrats of all races are more progressive and critical of Biden than their elders, Woodberry said he has seen polling that shows it is “more concentrated among Black voters.” says. Part of the precipitous decline in support for Biden among young black Americans lies in the fact that their support was initially very high – in Woodbury's words, “a high bar to fall.'' “I'm saying that. “When I sat in focus groups with young black voters and asked them what [Democrats have] “Even though this administration has delivered on many of the issues of black people that are being done to make their lives better, they are struggling to find answers. “It's a communication challenge that we have to overcome over the course of a year,” Woodbury said.
Biden's support among Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders and Hispanics/Latinos followed a similar trajectory to Biden's support among Black voters, but peaked from a low point. Began. Among Hispanics and Latinos, Biden entered the White House with an approval rating of over 70%. This number declined for the remainder of 2021 and into early summer 2022, peaking in the mid-40s, but began declining again in spring 2023. Currently, Biden's approval rating among Hispanics and Latinos is still declining, but he is inching closer to that gap. It's approaching 40 percent, an all-time low.
Biden's approval rating among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders started in the low 70s, but steadily declined from his first year in office until 2022. Their approval ratings remained stable in the low 50s from the midterm elections through the first few months of 2023. However, like Latin Americans, the decline began again this spring. In recent months, Biden's approval rating among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders has fallen below 50% for the first time since he took office, and appears to be declining further. However, there is an important caveat to this demographic. Crosstabulations for Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are sparse, and those that do exist typically have small sample sizes, so the recent decline may just be noise in the data. Additionally, most polls do not offer the opportunity to respond in languages other than English or Spanish, which may affect Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, who tend to be more conservative than other Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The voices of Pacific Islander native speakers may not be reflected. According to Karthick Ramakrishnan, founder of AAPI Data, there should be full representation.
Democratic strategist Dan Sena pointed to the conflicting messages Hispanic voters have heard from Democrats since the pandemic as a reason for Biden's battle with the group. Sena: “Just think about it.'' “The message was, “Stay home, stay safe, close schools.'' Do all of those things. Still, a significant number of Hispanics are getting up and going to work.'' I had to go.”
The sometimes contradictory Democratic message often centers on the economy, which appears to be driving dissatisfaction with Biden among people of color, but that dissatisfaction manifests itself differently in different people. “There is some level of anxiety. [for Latinos] In an economy that took many years to form, that first period [a] “You can't undo a president's term or his first three years in office. This film is set against the backdrop of a pandemic. That's why the cultural part around this is so important,” Sena said.
Meanwhile, Ramakrishnan said Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are turning their backs on Biden for a variety of reasons, including not just the Maui wildfires but also bigger issues like gun violence in urban areas. To tell. “For Asian Americans, who may be doing well economically, it's not so much the performance of the economy as a whole that hurts their pockets,” Ramakrishnan said, adding, “They may blame the president because they think the president is the head of the country,” he added. the entire economy. ”
Does all this mean that people of color will vote for Republican candidates? Not necessarily. Although Biden has suffered a decline in popularity among people of color, he remains more popular than his Republican alternatives. Ramakrishnan said that among Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, “these are all escalations of support to the left.” In short, Democrats need to make clear that the 2024 election is a choice between two competing visions, not a referendum on Biden's presidency.
“It's not just about Biden's approval,” Ramakrishnan said. “He doesn't own the entire story of the election.”
footnote
*To be consistent with other analyzes in this article, we are not using top-line Biden approval poll averages here. Instead, we calculated the best-fit line as the topline and the loess curve for each crosstab.
