Nearly 80% of Democrats believe the United States is headed in the wrong direction under the leadership of Democratic President Joe Biden.
Overall, 85% share that belief, according to a poll commissioned by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Among Democrats, 67% called the economic conditions poor amid record-high gasoline and food prices. The AP interviewed a loyal Democratic voter in Las Vegas who believes Biden is “doing the best he can.”
However, said Chuck McClain, 74, “I can’t say he’s doing a good job.”
Only 14% say the country is going in the right direction, down from 21% in May and 29% in April.
In a news conference Thursday at the end of the NATO summit in Madrid, a reporter referenced the new AP poll as she asked Biden how he can say – as he did at the previous NATO summit – that “America is back” as the leader of the free world.
Biden insisted there are no world leaders who believe America is going backwards, declaring the nation “is better positioned to lead the world than we have ever been.”
“But one thing that has been destabilizing is the outrageous behavior of the Supreme Court of United States in overruling not only Roe v. Wade, but essentially challenging the right to privacy,” he said.
The AP interviewed another voter who said she voted for Biden in 2020 but won’t support a Democratic ticket in 2024.
“I’m a Democrat so I had to vote Democrat, but that’s going to change,” said Dorothy Vaudo, 66, of Martin County, North Carolina.
In an interview with the AP earlier this month, Biden said the decline in his popularity was due to the rise in gas prices, which he blamed on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
After the report earlier this month that inflation in May hit an annual rate of 8.6%, Biden invoked his “Putin’s Price Hike” mantra in a statement.
“Putin’s Price Hike hit hard in May here and around the world: high gas prices at the pump, energy, and food prices accounted for around half of the monthly price increases,” Biden tweeted.
Shortly after the tweet was posted, however, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell denied under oath in a Senate hearing that the war is the primary driver of inflation, arguing it was high long before Putin’s invasion.
The AP said that Biden’s one bright spot in the poll is the 53% of Americans who approve of his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
However, Biden’s chief pandemic policy has been to push the COVID-19 vaccines, including imposing mandates on both federal and private workers that have cost many their jobs and hampered major industries. Meanwhile, health officials have acknowledged that the vaccines do not prevent infection and transmission of the virus, as they had promised. And studies, confirmed by real world data, indicate the vaccines are compromising immune systems, making people more vulnerable to infection and severe illness from COVID-19 along with the risk of potentially deadly side effects.
Reporting from World Net Daily.
