Biden’s approval has dropped by 10 percent since July.
By Sharon Zhang ,
PublishedDecember 18, 2023
President Joe Biden speaks about Bidenomics at CS Wind on November 29, 2023, in Pueblo, Colorado.
MICHAEL CIAGLO / GETTY IMAGES
Only one-third of Americans approve of President Joe Biden, a new poll finds, with his approval reaching the lowest point of his presidency as his administration works to rush weapons to Israel to aid its genocidal siege of Gaza.
According to a Monmouth University poll released on Monday, Biden’s approval has hit a mere 34 percent, with 61 percent of respondents saying they disapprove of his performance. This is Biden’s lowest approval rate so far, according to Monmouth, with his next-lowest rating being 36 percent recorded in June of 2022, amid record inflation.
Monmouth University Polling Institute President Patrick Murray chalks the result up to inflation rates in his analysis of the results. However, inflation rates do not explain the poll’s finding that Biden’s approval had crept back up to 44 percent in July of 2023 — but has since plummeted by 10 points, even as inflation has remained steady through this year. Further, in that time, those who disapproved of how Biden handles inflation appear to have increased from 62 percent in July to 68 percent in the most recent poll.
The poll didn’t ask respondents about Israel’s assault, nor did it survey on foreign policy in general, rather only asking about Biden’s performance on employment, infrastructure, climate and immigration — many of which did see an increase in disapproval over previous months by a few percentage points.
However, other recent polls have suggested that Biden’s staunch support of Israel’s brutal war on Gaza could be a major factor in his plummeting approval rating. A Pew Research poll conducted around the same time frame as the Monmouth poll found that 21 percent of Americans say that Biden is “favoring Israelis too much” in his current policies, while only 16 percent said he was “favoring Palestinians too much.” Further, 45 percent of Democrats said that Israel is “going too far” in its assault, with only 18 percent saying Israel is taking the “right approach” and 8 percent saying they aren’t going far enough.
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Only one-third of Americans approve of President Joe Biden, a new poll finds, with his approval reaching the lowest point of his presidency as his administration works to rush weapons to Israel to aid its genocidal siege of Gaza.
According to a Monmouth University poll released on Monday, Biden’s approval has hit a mere 34 percent, with 61 percent of respondents saying they disapprove of his performance. This is Biden’s lowest approval rate so far, according to Monmouth, with his next-lowest rating being 36 percent recorded in June of 2022, amid record inflation.
Monmouth University Polling Institute President Patrick Murray chalks the result up to inflation rates in his analysis of the results. However, inflation rates do not explain the poll’s finding that Biden’s approval had crept back up to 44 percent in July of 2023 — but has since plummeted by 10 points, even as inflation has remained steady through this year. Further, in that time, those who disapproved of how Biden handles inflation appear to have increased from 62 percent in July to 68 percent in the most recent poll.
The poll didn’t ask respondents about Israel’s assault, nor did it survey on foreign policy in general, rather only asking about Biden’s performance on employment, infrastructure, climate and immigration — many of which did see an increase in disapproval over previous months by a few percentage points.
However, other recent polls have suggested that Biden’s staunch support of Israel’s brutal war on Gaza could be a major factor in his plummeting approval rating. A Pew Research poll conducted around the same time frame as the Monmouth poll found that 21 percent of Americans say that Biden is “favoring Israelis too much” in his current policies, while only 16 percent said he was “favoring Palestinians too much.” Further, 45 percent of Democrats said that Israel is “going too far” in its assault, with only 18 percent saying Israel is taking the “right approach” and 8 percent saying they aren’t going far enough.
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NEWS |“Biden is in effect conceding that the Israeli military is committing war crimes,” the international law expert said.By Sharon Zhang , TRUTHOUTDecember 15, 2023
Similarly, a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last month found that public support for Israel had collapsed by nearly 10 points since Israel’s current assault began, with only 32 percent saying that they support Israel. Even prior to Israel’s current assault, polls found that Americans in Biden’s base were increasingly opposed to Israel’s violence and apartheid regime in Palestine; in a Gallup poll in March, more Democrats said they sympathize with Palestine than with Israel for the first time.
Meanwhile, numerous polls have found that the vast majority of voters support a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. A Data for Progress poll earlier this month found that 61 percent of voters, including 76 percent of Democrats, favor this path.
Perhaps tellingly of voters’ views of Biden’s actions, a strong majority of voters also said that the U.S. should only supply Israel with aid if its military efforts meet U.S. human rights standards, with 76 percent of Democrats in agreement.
While many voters feel that human rights should be prioritized in Gaza, the Biden administration has seemingly not concerned themselves with human rights at all, in terms of where it’s directing military support. For 11 weeks, Israel has blocked food, water, electricity and humanitarian aid from entering Gaza; it has relentlessly bombed the region, bombing schools, hospitals and refugee camps; and it has killed nearly 20,000 Palestinians, killing civilians at a rate nearly unparalleled in any other modern conflict.
The Biden administration’s response has been to simply acknowledge in public that Israel has been potentially committing war crimes — while working in the background to covertly send weapons to Israel and crush dissent within the administration to do so. Reports have confirmed that Israel has been using these weapons to extensively to bombard Gaza.
This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.
SHARON ZHANG is a news writer at Truthout covering politics, climate and labor. Before coming to Truthout, Sharon had written stories for Pacific Standard, The New Republic, and more. She has a master’s degree in environmental studies. She can be found on Twitter: @zhang_sharon.
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