By GREGORY ZELLER //
Most Americans approve of the White House’s response to Russia’s Ukraine invasion – but that’s about the only part of President Joe Biden’s job performance earning praise.
So says the latest Kalikow School Poll by Hofstra University’s Peter S. Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency, conducted this month by London-based market researcher YouGov.
According to the survey – the latest in a line designed by the Peter S. Kalikow School of Government, Public Policy and International Affairs, this one polling 2,278 U.S. adults (ages 18 and up) between March 11 and March 21 – 85 percent of Democrats, 82 percent of registered Independents and 78 percent of Republicans approved of the economic sanctions leveled at Russia in the wake of that country’s brutal invasion of Ukraine, despite the sanctions’ drag on domestic economics.
Craig Burnett: It’s the economy.
Taking that point a step further, 85 percent of Democrats and 68 percent of Republicans said they were willing to pay more for fuel, one of the sanctions’ numerous side effects.
But that is “the only area we saw broad, bipartisan support” for Biden’s presidential performance, according to Kalikow School Poll Program Director Craig Burnett, who noted widespread concerns about inflation and increasing dissatisfaction among Biden’s base.
“[Democrats] have split with Biden more than Republicans did under [President Donald] Trump,” Burnett noted.
Case in point: Only 22 percent of survey respondents are happy with the country’s direction, while Biden’s overall job approval – hovering around 53 percent one year ago – is now around 43 percent, a plunge “largely driven by increasing dissatisfaction among independent and Democratic voters,” according to Hofstra.
Meanwhile, the ghosts of elections past continue to weigh down American interests: According to the survey, 62 percent of Republicans still believe Trump won the 2020 election, 35 percent of Republicans describe the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol as a “normal rally” and just 8 percent of Republicans call the pro-Trump mob attack – which left at least five dead, injured 140 law-enforcement officers and has so far generated more than 800 arrests – an “insurrection.”
President Biden: Losing support.
The survey also catches up with COVID-19, which is slowly slipping toward the national zeitgeist’s back burner. Only 72 percent of respondents rated COVID an “important” or “very important” issue right now, compared to 85 percent last spring, while 42 percent came out of the pandemic believing that mask-wearing should be an individual decision, regardless of U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations.
Although the ever-mutating coronavirus is less worrisome to most these days – and mask mandates remain a mixed political bag – the new survey shows that COVID has had a lingering effect on the American psyche, according to Kalikow Center for the Study of the American Presidency Director Meena Bose, Hofstra’s executive dean for public policy and public service programs.
“The survey results reinforce that people are keen to move past pandemic restrictions of the past two years,” Bose said in a statement, “though they clearly recognize that COVID-19 still remains a major concern.”
