Most in new poll say Biden hasn’t achieved much in first two years
Sixty-two percent of Americans say President Biden has not achieved much during his first two years in office, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows, despite efforts by Democratic leaders to frame that time as the most productive in Washington since Lyndon Baines Johnson’s “Great Society” agenda.
Only 36 percent of Americans surveyed said they thought Biden had accomplished “a great deal” or “a good amount.”
The survey revealed big disparities in how Americans view Biden among Democrats, independents and Republicans.
Seventy-seven percent of Democrats said Biden has accomplished a great deal or a good amount while 32 percent of independents said so and only 7 percent of Republicans did.
Ninety-three percent of Republicans said Biden has accomplished “not much” or “little or nothing.” That view was shared by 66 percent of Independents and only 22 percent of Democrats.
The poll shows the challenge Biden and Democrats in Congress face in selling their accomplishments to voters before the 2024 presidential election.
The Democratic Congress passed a $1.7 billion COVID-19 relief package, a $1 trillion infrastructure package, and the Inflation Reduction Act, which included prescription drug reform and $370 billion for clean energy programs.
Biden will have a chance to change the narrative and give those accomplishments more visibility when he addresses the nation and a joint session of Congress during his second State of the Union speech Tuesday.
It will also be an opportunity to put pressure on Republicans to raise the nation’s debt ceiling without also cutting hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending, which conservative lawmakers are insisting be part of any debt ceiling bill.
The survey found that 65 percent of Americans think the issues of debt payment and federal spending should be handled separately while only 26 percent said Congress should raise the debt ceiling only if Congress agrees to cut spending.
On this question, independents sided more with Democrats than Republicans. Eighty-three percent of Democrats and 74 percent of independents said debt payments and federal spending should be handled separately while only 41 percent of Republicans said the two issues shouldn’t be linked.
People gave Biden and Democrats little credit for two of their biggest accomplishments in the last Congress, the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and Inflation Reduction Act, which included prescription drug reform.
Thirty-two percent of Americans said Biden has made progress improving roads and bridges in their community and 30 percent said Biden made progress lowing prescription drug costs. Sixty-percent of respondents said Biden hasn’t made much progress improving roads and bridges and 47 percent said he hasn’t made much of a dent in prescription drug prices.
Americans had similarly glum views of Biden’s record creating more jobs and making electric vehicles more affordable.
Only 34 percent of respondents said Biden has made progress creating good jobs and 26 percent said he has made progress making electric vehicles more affordable.
The polling results are disappointing for the president who on Friday touted the creation of 12 million jobs since he took office in January of 2021, including 517,000 new jobs created last month.
Americans surveyed by the Post/ABC News poll expressed little confidence that Biden, lawmakers in Congress or Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) would make the right decisions for the country’s future.
Only 31 percent of Americans said they have a great deal or good amount of confidence that Biden would make wise decisions.
That, however, was still more confidence than people expressed in Congress or McCarthy.
Twenty-eight percent of the survey’s respondents said they had a great deal or a good amount of confidence in Democrats in Congress while 25 percent said they felt confident about Republicans in Congress making wise decisions and only 19 percent said they felt confident McCarthy would make the right decisions for the country.
The Washington Post-ABC poll was conducted from Jan. 27 to Feb. 1 and surveyed 1,003 adults nationwide. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.