How Does President Joe Biden Rank in the 2016 Senate Election? Analysis of Gallup’s Exceptional Presidential Job Approval Center

For the last few months, Democrats and their leader, President Joe Biden, have been front and center in the narrative of American politics.

Their odds of keeping the Senate look better than they did before and some pundits think that the Democrats may be able to gain a majority in the House.

Donald Trump has made a difference in the past couple of years to President Joe Biden’s political standing. The Democratic Party, which was in charge of the White House, had one of the best moments in history last fall, thanks in large part to Biden.

How does Biden rank over time in his presidency? Using Gallup’s awesome presidential job approval center, we can track where recent Biden’s recent predecessors stood in the final stretch before the midterm election in their first term.

The precedent of the year offers some hope for Democrats that they can separate themselves from the views of the president. In most cases, the Senate results in competitive states that year did follow attitudes about the president: Republicans won seven races where Trump’s approval rating stood at 49% or above, while losing, as noted above, all 10 where he reached only 48% or less.

But another critical factor is that many of the voter groups that Democrats most rely upon are relatively less focused on the issues where public concerns about Biden’s performance are greatest, and more focused on issues where anxieties are greatest about the intentions of Republicans. According to a long-time GOP pollster, the blue team cares about abortion and democracy while the red team cares about crime and immigration. There is a little overlap on the inflation front. We have become so close that the two teams are motivated by different things.

But Democrats remain highly competitive this year largely because so many voters also view the Donald Trump-era Republicans as a threat to their rights (particularly on abortion), values and democracy itself. The critical question for November may be whether those considerations can allow Democratic candidates to continue levitating above the negative assessments of the economy and Biden’s performance.

Republican consultant John Brabender says that over the summer voters dismayed about the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade decided “let’s get the pitchforks and get those people for what they’re doing on abortion.” He says they realized they couldn’t afford gas to get there. That’s shifted the relative priority on the issue for many voters, he maintains: “Is there some intensity on abortion? Sure. It isn’t what it was weeks ago. It’s putting pressure on some of these Democratic candidates because for a long time all they had to say is ‘I’m with you on abortion.’”

Noble says Kelly is benefiting from campaign fundamentals: the Democrat has significantly outspent, and also more successfully occupied the center, than his Republican rival. But Noble also believes that Kelly is surmounting disenchantment with Biden in part because some voters are already looking past the president as they assess the parties. The job approval of the president is not having a noticeable effect, according to Noble. “People have accepted it’s Joe Biden, and pat him on the head, push him along, so you are not seeing that direct connection” to the Senate vote.

These results partly reflect the sheer intractability of our modern political divisions, which leaves fewer voters open to shifting allegiance no matter how unhappy they are with current conditions. The GOP has been hurt by candidates in the Senate races who are aligned with the Trump campaign because many voters view them as unqualified or both.

Most voters who focused on inflation gave the Republicans two-thirds of their votes in Congress, according to the results provided by Marist. But Democrats attracted about three-fourths of those who emphasized abortion or health care, and over three-fifths of those focused on preserving democracy.

Given these disparities, Democrats everywhere are stressing issues relating to rights and values, particularly abortion, but also warning about the threat to democracy posed by Trump and his movement. Since June, Democrats have spent more on ads about abortion than Republicans.

What do Latino voters really want to see from the Biden legislative agenda? A study of somos votantes, a network of Latino activists in Phoenix

In the long run, the most important of these may be the argument that the incentives for domestic production embedded in the trio of central Biden legislative accomplishments – the bills to rebuild infrastructure, promote semiconductor manufacturing and accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy – will produce a boom in US employment, particularly in manufacturing jobs that don’t require a college degree.

But those plant openings are mostly still in the future and only a few Democrats (such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Arizona Sen. Kelly, and Ohio Senate candidate Tim Ryan) are emphasizing those possibilities this year.

Democrats stress that the legislation the party has passed offers some relief on costs, most notably in the Inflation Reduction Act which allows Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices. Garin believes that highlighting specific initiatives can help individual candidates overcome the criticism of their economic management. His main concern is that too many Democrats are focusing on abortions while neglecting the economic message.

The founder of Somos Votantes, a group that mobilizes Latino voters, says that Republicans haven’t convinced many voters that they have specific answers to the economy either. She said that the concrete is not set yet after a day of door-to-door canvass in Phoenix. “There is still a way to move people, connect with people.” She and her group have the same message as Way to Win, which is to try to bridge the kitchen Tables and Values divide: Democrats are committed to providing people opportunities to help them meet their obligation to their families while Republicans are focused on taking away rights.

Among likely Hispanic voters, a narrow 48 percent plurality disapproved of Mr. Biden even as 60 percent said they would vote for congressional Democrats this fall — one of a few groups, including younger voters, who appeared to separate their frustration with the White House from their voting plans.

College was a particularly strong dividing line. Among those with a bachelor’s degree, Democrats held a 13-point advantage. Republicans held a 15-point advantage among those without one.

The winning coalition of Democrats in the White House, Senate and House relied on a significant gender gap to win women, as well as winning other women by large margins.

The poll showed that the Republicans had completely erased the Democrats’ 11-point advantage over the Republicans among women in congressional races in the year 2022, which ended in a statistical tie.

More and more Republicans think that Trump is their best choice in a general election. They’re less likely to say they like him. His favorable rating for Republicans was over 75% in a survey conducted in October of 2021. The same poll this month had Trump’s favorable rating at 71% among Republicans.

The rare 2024 polls that match Biden against other named Democrats (such as Harris, who is very unlikely to run against him) put him up by north of 15 points. For comparison, Barack Obama led Hillary Clinton by 15 points in a late-2010 poll of a hypothetical 2012 Democratic primary. Jimmy Carter was trailing Ted Kennedy in late 1978 polling of a hypothetical 1980 primary.

The mood of the nation is very sour right now. Sixty-four percent of likely voters think the country is moving in the right direction, compared with just 24 percent who think it is moving in the wrong direction. Even the share of Democratic likely voters who believe the nation is headed in the right direction fell by six percentage points since September, though it is above the low point of the summer.

“Everybody’s hurting right now,” said David Neiheisel, a 48-year-old insurance salesman and Republican in Indianapolis. “Inflation, interest rates, the cost of gas, the cost of food, the cost of my property taxes, my utilities — I mean, everything’s gone up astronomically, and it’s going to collapse.”

The Times/Siena Survey: Voting at the End of the Congress During Inflation. Is Biden a Clown?

The Times/Siena survey was conducted using live operators for a period of 12 days. The margin of sampling error is less than one percentage point. Cross-tabs and methodology are available here.

In Senate races the long-term trend is for people to think that the sitting president exerts more influence over the results than the other candidates. Senate contests are more akin to parliamentary contests where fewer voters are voting on the merits of the two candidates and instead are opting for what party they prefer to control Congress.

Paul Maslin is a long-time Democratic Pollster and he says that the real question is what group of independents will vote at the end. “Is it people saying, ‘I hate inflation, crime is wrecking this big city I live in,’ or people saying, ‘I’m sorry but Herschel Walker is a clown, Mehmet Oz is a clown. They go to the Democrats and say that the guy is a joke. I don’t know. I don’t know.

The Democratic hopes of Biden rising in his approval rating through Election Day were dashed because of the high inflation in 40 years.

According to a political scientist, the biggest problem with Democrats is that things have not gotten better for them in peoples’ eyes even though they have done something to improve it. They would be in better shape if inflation came down from where it has been. You can’t tell people that things are better when your own experience tells them that it is not.

In the past twenty or thirty years, we have seen a trend of nationalization of congressional races where opinions about national issues and national political leaders are more closely connected to how people vote. It used to be easy for incumbents to run far ahead of the president from their own party approval ratings based on various factors, such as their reputation in their state or district, name recognition, and other benefits of being an incumbent. Over time that value has decreased.”

All of them had to win in a state where the majority of the population thought the other party was better. Today, the Democratic candidates are facing a majority of the electorate who do not approve of a Democratic president.

J.B. Poersch believes personal differences explain why there was high Democratic support for Biden. In my opinion, candidate quality is a lot to do with the outcome in Senate races. The Democrats have a strong track record of delivering for their states and a demonstrated ability to create their own environment, while Republicans have a roster of extremists who are totally out of step.

Even in such an environment, Ulm acknowledges, weak personal images may sink some GOP Senate (and governor) nominees. “I think that is the only hope and it may save them against the weakest candidates,” he says, “but not anybody other than that.” He predicts that discontent with Biden and the desire for a change in direction will allow multiple Republican candidates to win who are viewed unfavorably by more voters than view them favorably.

Modern US politics do not have such exceptions. Because Biden’s standing is so weak in so many places, to hold the Senate, Democrats will almost certainly need a lot more of them.

Much of the conversation in the leadup to the midterms revolved around how Republicans were clamoring for former President Donald Trump’s endorsement, while Democrats wanted President Joe Biden to stay away. The picture looks different a month after the election.

Instead, the opposite has happened. Major possible foes such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom said they wouldn’t run against Biden. Almost every power player in the Democratic Party has said they will back Biden, if he decides to run again.

It cannot be said that the same can be said for Trump. Even after he declared his run for the presidency last month, just one senator has endorsed his bid for another term. The potential Republican challengers are still in the race.

There is a reason for this and Trump’s poll numbers appear to be weak. I’m not just talking about his polling against other Republicans. I’m talking about how Republican voters see him.

This indicates that Trump’s biggest strength at this point among Republicans is name recognition – something other Republicans will get a lot more of as the primary season heats up.

Our polls out this month show that Donald Trump is no longer the most liked candidate in his party and that the candidate with the higher favorable rating is Ron DeSantis.

The survey asked Republicans who they wanted to be their party’s candidate in 2024, but didn’t name any candidates. Only 26% of respondents picked Trump. He trailed DeSantis, who came in at 39%.

What Happens When Donald Trump Gets Back in the Public Eye: How Many People Are Using Donald’s Name? How Popular Has He Been?

In the first month of the 21st century, Biden’s name was brought up more often than not after documents were found at his home and office after he left the White House.

This does not appear to have hurt Trump’s 2024 bid. If anything, it has helped. Trump’s national polling numbers had been in a free fall in November after a midterm election that was bad for Republicans (the opposition party) by historical standards. Democrats had made Donald Trump a focal point of their attacks.

Among those who searched for either Biden or Trump, about 60% of them in the past two weeks searched for Biden. This is Biden’s highest percentage since the fall of 2001 when compared with Trump. The time when searches for Biden peaked was after the US ended its military presence in Afghanistan.

The polls have both of these dips within their margin of error. But they’re notable when looked at together and within the context of the average of polls – Biden’s average approval rating is down about 2.5 points from two weeks ago (when he was at his highest level since 2021).

As the spotlight has shone on Biden, Trump has seemingly been taking a step back from it. After declaring his third bid for the Republican presidential nomination last year, Donald Trump only traveled to New Hampshire and South Carolina this weekend.

A look at the number of people searching for Trump on Google tells the story of his inactivity. Fewer people have looked him up this month than in any month since he started running for the Republican presidential nomination in 2015.

The question is what happens when Trump gets back in the public eye. Will it remind Republicans of what they like about him? Or will voters remember what they don’t like about Trump?