When President Joe Biden’s performance is losing California voters, he’s lost America, full stop. In a Berkeley IGS poll released Wednesda...
When President Joe Biden’s performance is losing California voters, he’s lost America, full stop.
In a Berkeley IGS poll released Wednesday, more Californians disapproved of Biden’s performance than approved of it, if just by a narrow margin of 47 percent approval to 48 percent disapproval.
The news is the latest brutal news for the president in the polls after a year’s worth of battering on issues like inflation, jobs, COVID, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the border crisis and supply-chain issues.
The latest poll from the Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll is a precipitous drop in support for the president in the Golden State. In less than a year, he’s shed 15 approval points and gained another 14 points of disapproval paunch.
In April of 2021, he sat at 62 percent approval compared to 34 percent approval among Californians, according to the IGS. That wasn’t much changed in a July 2021 poll, which found him at 59 percent approval against 37 percent disapproval.
Things are actually worse for Vice President Kamala Harris, too.
Despite being the first Californian on a major party ticket since Ronald Reagan in 1984, and in a position that would normally make her the heir apparent to Biden if and (more likely) when he decides to forego running again in 2024, only 38 percent of California registered voters surveyed approved of the job she was doing, with 46 percent disapproving.
To be fair, Kamala didn’t have quite so far to fall. In April of 2021, she only had 53 percent approval against 33 percent disapproval in the same poll. In July of 2021, that was 49 percent approval versus 38 percent disapproval. Perhaps it’s telling that the voters who are most intimately acquainted with the veep’s political performance are less enthused with her than the senescent man she could potentially replace, but I digress.
The poll was taken Feb. 3-10 among 8,937 registered California voters with a 2 percent margin of error.
It found “Biden’s and Harris’s approval ratings remain above water among voters living in the Democratic strongholds of Los Angeles County and the San Francisco Bay Area, but are more negative than positive in nearly every other region of the state,” according to a Wednesday news release.
“Generally speaking, the voter subgroups who approve or disapprove of Biden are the same subgroups viewing Harris positively or negatively,” wrote Berkeley IGS poll director Mark DiCamillo.
“Republicans and strong conservatives overwhelmingly disapprove of the job that each is doing, with about nine in ten offering a negative assessment. On the other hand, while the state’s Democratic and liberal voters view each more positively than negatively, their assessments are not nearly as one-sided, with about seven in ten of the state’s Democrats and liberals approving of Biden’s performance, and about six in ten saying this about Harris.
It’s not just the president and vice president who aren’t being held in a favorable light, either. Democrat California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a longtime favorite of the left-leaning and gun control set, is seeing her numbers hit an “all-time low,” according to the poll.
Only 30 percent of voters approve of the job Feinstein is doing, compared with 49 percent who disapprove. This includes “more negative than positive job ratings from strong liberals, women, voters of color, younger voters, as well as voters in Los Angeles County or the San Francisco Bay Area,” DiCamillo wrote.
While Feinstein isn’t up for re-election until 2024, none of these numbers are particularly good news for the Democrats.
In the short term, California has several swing congressional districts that could be critical to the contest for control of the House of Representatives in the midterms. Furthermore, there’s a long-shot possibility that Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom could lose his reelection bid, if conservatives come out to the polls in droves in November.
Longer-term, the numbers are a blow to a Biden administration that has long been underwater in the approval department.
Nationwide, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average, the president sits at 41 percent approval and 53 percent disapproval as of Thursday. His polling aggregate has been negative since the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan in August.
Harris is doing even worse, sitting at 37.7 percent approval and 51.9 percent disapproval in the RealClearPolitics average; she’s quickly transitioning from heir apparent to political liability.
No, the GOP isn’t likely to take California and its 54 electoral votes any time soon, considering Biden won it by a 64-34 margin in 2020. The fact the president is net unpopular in a liberal stronghold, however — even if it’s within the margin of error — suggest this isn’t a quick fix for Biden or the Democrats.
If he’s underwater in the home of Hollywood and Silicon Valley, after all, he’s dead in the water everywhere else.
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