Biden’s approval rating falls to 41 pct. due to Delta spread, inflation

Washington, Nov 14 (EFE).- President Joe Biden’s approval rating fell to 41 percent in November, an 11 percent decline compared to its level in March due to the spread of the Delta coronavirus variant and to increasing inflation – which is at its highest annualized level in 31 years – a private survey revealed on Sunday.

In September, Biden’s approval rating had been pegged at 44 percent, while last March it had been 52 percent, according to a survey released by The Washington Post and ABC News.

Since then, however, public disapproval over the handling of the economy by the administration has been growing, moving from 41 percent in April to 55 percent in November.

This month, just 39 percent of those surveyed said they approved of the way Biden was handling the economy.

According to the Office of Labor Statistics, the annualized US inflation rate shot up in October to 6.2 percent, the highest level since 1990, amid strong consumer demand and problems with the global supply chain after the worldwide crisis caused by the pandemic.

Meanwhile, the negative perception of Biden’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic, which has caused more than 760,000 deaths and more than 47 million infections in the US since it began in early 2020, has increased.

In November, 49 percent of those surveyed condemned Biden’s efforts to halt the pandemic, a sharp contrast to the 31 percent who felt that way last April.

Along the same lines, public support for Biden’s response to Covid-19 fell from 64 percent in April to 47 percent this month.

Despite the ongoing vaccination campaign headed by the Democratic leader since taking office in January 2021, Covid-19 infections and hospitalizations have spiked since late August and early September with the arrival in the US of the much more transmissible Delta variant.

In addition, the survey – conducted between Nov. 7-10 among 1,001 people – took a reading of the political environment with an eye toward the November 2022 mid-term elections, in which the Democrats’ narrow majorities in both houses of Congress may be at risk.

The study found that if those elections were held today, 51 percent of registered voters would back the Republican congressional candidate in their districts, while 41 percent of them would back the Democrat.

EFE

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