Three months before the midterm elections, Americans are maintaining a sour view of the state of the economy and are pessimistic about its future course, with President Joe Biden’s approval rating in a series of d ‘areas issues that continue to suffer, according to one new ABC News/Ipsos poll.
More than two-thirds (69%) of Americans think the nation’s economy is getting worse, the highest since 2008, when it was 82% in an ABC News/Washington Post poll. Currently, only 12% believe the economy is improving and 18% believe it is essentially staying the same.
Americans’ views of Biden’s handling of the economic recovery remain overwhelmingly negative and virtually unchanged from the same poll in early June, with just 37% of Americans approving of the job the president is doing and 62% disapproving of ABC’s latest news. /Ipsos survey, which was conducted using the Ipsos KnowledgePanel.
The president’s rating on inflation is even worse, with 29% of Americans saying he approves, while 69% disapprove. This number has also not changed since June.
President Joe Biden speaks before signing two bills aimed at combating fraud in the COVID-19 small business relief programs, August 5, 2022 at the White House in Washington.
Evan Vucci/AP
The only area where Biden sees any improvement in this poll is his handling of gas prices. Just over one in three Americans (34%) approve of the president’s handling of gas prices, up seven points since June.
This comes as the country has seen the average cost of a gallon of gas drop — price drops celebrated by the White House.
The low confidence in Biden’s handling of the economy and inflation comes after Friday’s jobs report showed 528,000 jobs were added in July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Americans also saw the unemployment rate drop to 3.5%.
In a statement released Friday, Biden touted the July jobs report, saying it shows his administration is “making meaningful progress for working families.”
When asked how excited they were to vote in November, the poll found that 75 percent of Republicans are very or somewhat excited to vote, compared to 68 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of the independents In ABC News/Ipsos polls conducted in April and June this year, Republicans were more likely than Democrats to report being very excited about voting. That gap narrowed to five points in this August poll.
Supporters applaud as Kansas’ proposed constitutional amendment fails as they watch the networks call during the Kansas Primary Election Watchdog Party for Constitutional Freedom in Overland Park, Kansas, on August 2 of 2022.
Dave Kaup/AFP via Getty Images
There are other glimmers of hope for Democrats in the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll regarding the potential impact abortion could have on how voters cast ballots this November.
The poll asked voters which candidate they would support if one favored making abortion legal and available and the other candidate favored limiting abortion except to protect the life of the mother. About half of Americans (49%) would be more likely to support the candidate who would maintain access to legal abortion compared to 27% of Americans who would be more likely to support the candidate which favors the limitation of abortion. Meanwhile, 22% of Americans say abortion would have no impact on how they vote.
It comes after voters in the deep red state of Kansas voted to preserve abortion rights in the state constitution, shocking the country in the first statewide test since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v.
In a statement from Biden on the defeat of the Kansas abortion amendment, he called on Congress to “listen to the will of the American people and restore the protections of Roe as federal law.”
This ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted using the Ipsos Public Affairs® KnowledgePanel® on August 5-6, 2022, in English and Spanish, among a random national sample of 665 adults. The results have a margin of sampling error of 4.2 points, including the design effect. Party splits are 29-25-40 percent, Democrat-Republican-Independent. See survey results and details on methodology here.
ABC News’ Ken Goldstein and Dan Merkle contributed to this report.
