Joe Biden’s approval rating is still underwater, according to a Fox News poll that was released this week, but Democrats still have reasons to celebrate.
The poll reveals that the president’s party holds key advantages over Republicans with regards to his handling of key issues that could make a difference on the 2024 campaign trail, both at the top and down the ballot.
44 per cent of survey respondents said they approved of the job that Mr Biden is doing as president, while 56 per cent said that they disapproved. The approval number has remained unchanged from a month prior, while the disapproval percentage has ticked up one point.
It’s hardly a great sign for the White House, though it is quite far out from any kind of election. But campaign staffers and the president’s advisers have another reason to pay attention to the latest polling.
According to the Fox poll, Mr Biden’s handling of several key issues is widely popular, even among Republicans. Those include his executive order to expand background checks on gun purchases, as well as the Biden administration’s expansion of the Willow Project, an oil-drilling project in Alaska. The former is particularly popular, with more than seven in ten Americans supporting the move, and comes as the gun violence epidemic remains a top political concern for many Americans.
There are also a handfull of clear pitfalls for the GOP buried in the survey results. As the Republican Party backs quickly away from plans to cut Social Security which were once championed by the party’s congressional leadership (while taking gratuitous swipes from Mr Biden on the issue), the poll finds that a clear majority of Republican voters (59 per cent) say that fully funding Social Security and other social welfare programs are important to them.
Another trap presents itself amid the conservative right’s culture war efforts.
The Democratic onslaught against the effort to ban school materials that acknowledge the existence of LGBT+ persons has clearly taken its toll, and as a result fully 70 per cent of respondents were “extremely” or “very” concerned about efforts by local school boards to ban books from school libraries. Expect that to be an issue that comes up with the likely inevitable entrance of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in the presidential race.
The Fox News poll was conducted between 24-27 March, 2023, and included responses from 1,007 registered voters. The overall margin of error is 3 percentage points.
