The independent voters who neither love nor loathe President Joe Biden could ultimately decide the Democrats' fate in the midterm elections Nov. 8.
Earlier this week, a Politico/Morning Consult poll revealed that President Biden has a generic job-approval rating of 43% and a disapproval score of 55%.
However, 15% of Biden respondents accounted for the pool of "somewhat disapprove." This implies there's still wiggle room — and perhaps more importantly, time — for Democratic Party candidates to make their final appeals to voters who may be indifferent to Biden's persona or policies, but still want that party to control the House and Senate chambers.
Biden's job-approval marks have largely been static since August 2021, around the time the White House endured criticism for its handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal.
Also, the sluggish U.S. economy (back-to-back quarters of negative GDP growth) and high inflation (averaging 8.5% since March) have likely contributed to the president being underwater with approval ratings — both nationally and on a state-by-state basis.
Here are some highlights from the Politico/Morning Consult survey, which chronicled the responses of 2,005 registered voters over a three-day period (Oct. 21-23):
- Among the survey takers, 47% are planning to vote Democrat in the House and Senate races, and only 42% prefer Republican candidates.
- Overall, 68% of respondents said they believe the U.S. economy is currently in the midst of a recession, compared to just 19% stating otherwise.
- 46% of poll respondents listed the "economy" as their most pressing issue, heading into the midterms.
- 49% of those surveyed feel that U.S. immigration policies, relative to the United States-Mexico border, have gotten worse under the Biden administration — including 16% of Democrats.
- Independent voters comprised the largest bloc of the "somewhat disapprove" group.
- With education and income levels, there wasn't a major disparity in those filing "disapproval" responses with Biden. However, the 18-34 age group posted the highest disapproval marks with Biden, according to Politico.
- Of the voters giving disapproval marks to Biden, 44% of that subgroup plan to vote for Democratic Party candidates in the House and Senate races — compared to just 35% of Republicans. Also, 21% of the "disapproval" pool remain undecided about their congressional picks in November.
The Politico/Morning Consult poll has a margin-of-error rate of 2 percentage points.
As Newsmax chronicled earlier this week, the Navigator public tracking poll — traditionally a left-leaning survey group — reported that independent voters are substantially more concerned about the U.S. economy and gas prices in October than they were in September.
That represents a month-to-month increase of 20%.
According to Navigator, there are other signals of a possible "red wave" in the midterms: Internal Democratic polls from deep-blue states such as New York, Rhode Island, Oregon, and Washington show that Republicans could fare well in House, Senate, and gubernatorial elections.
The likely reason for the sudden shift to conservative candidates: In addition to the economy and inflation, Navigator notes that voters are greatly concerned about rising crime in all four states.
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