A majority of Americans have little to no trust in President Joe Biden to provide accurate information on the coronavirus or the p...
A majority of Americans have little to no trust in President Joe Biden to provide accurate information on the coronavirus or the pandemic, a new poll released Tuesday finds.
The September installment of the Ipsos/Axios poll marks the first time Biden is grappling with a trust deficit among US voters in his presidency.
Some 53 percent of Americans say they have 'not very much' trust or 'none at all' in Biden to provide accurate COVID-19 information.
Just 45 percent say they have a 'great deal' or a 'fair amount' of trust in him.
The president sat down in front of cameras yesterday to get his COVID-19 booster shot in a bid to encourage Americans over age 65 and others who qualify to get inoculated again.
He's spent much of his eight months in office working to convince unvaccinated Americans to get the shot, but took a firmer hand early in September when he announced a sweeping vaccination order affecting roughly 100 million Americans.
It came after a summer COVID surge that coincided with a slowdown in new vaccinations.
Biden faces a trust deficit among Americans on COVID-19 information for the first time during his presidency, according to an Ipsos/Axios poll
Biden got his COVID-19 booster shot on live television on Monday afternoon
Fueled by the highly contagious Delta variant, largely-unvaccinated areas of the country once again saw record-high hospitalizations and infections that strained healthcare systems to near-breaking points.
Tuesday's poll, taken from September 24 to September 27, shows Biden taking a 13-point hit since January when he promised as commander-in-chief to steer the nation out of the pandemic.
Just after he was inaugurated, a significant 58 percent of Americans trusted Biden to provide accurate COVID information. Only 42 percent had little to no trust.
The drop-off from the beginning of Biden's honeymoon phase is most significant among Independent voters.
Fifty-nine percent of Independents trusted Biden on COVID when he first came into office. Now just 42 percent do.
But the slide occurred across all parties. In January 92 percent of Democrats trusted Biden to provide accurate COVID pandemic information, compared to 81 percent in September.
Republicans experienced a similar loss of trust in Biden from 21 percent to 11 percent.
Biden saw a 13-point drop in trust from his highest point in January when he first took office
But Americans' issues don't end with Biden - just 49 percent trust the federal government as a whole to relay accurate pandemic information, down from 54 percent two weeks prior.
In regards to dealing with the pandemic themselves, the survey found that more people are beginning to feel bolder about going out to restaurants and taking mass transit.
A poll from mid-September even reflected Americans getting behind Biden's announcement that all federal workers must be vaccinated and businesses with 100 or more employees have to enact vaccine mandates or weekly testing.
Sixty percent of Americans backed the federal mandate. Slightly less but still a majority, 57 percent, of employed Americans supported their own employers requiring vaccines in the office.
The disparity between Americans' enthusiasm for vaccines and returning to normal and their trust in Biden as a messenger is more significant as the pandemic continues.
'Delta and other issues have really undermined the public's perception' of how much they can trust Biden when he says the end is in sight, according to Ipsos US public affairs president Cliff Young told Axios.
'He won on COVID, he surfed the first six months on COVID, but he's being challenged by it now because there's not a clear resolution in sight.'
Young explained, 'People have adapted. They have countermeasures they trust. But we're still in the middle of it. It hasn't gone away. You have to wear masks everywhere. It's doable, but it makes you frustrated.'
Americans are growing more disappointed with Biden's job in the White House in general.
Poll aggregation site FiveThirtyEight puts the president's disapproval rating more than three points higher than his approval, at 48.8 percent disapproving to just 45.3 percent approving.
His approval crossed below his disapproval in late August amid the US's chaotic military withdrawal from Afghanistan and has been growing ever since.
Biden's disapproval rating at this point in his term is lower than that of any past president since Harry Truman when the data tracking began, except for Donald Trump.
Only Trump and Gerald Ford had lower approval ratings at this point in their tenures.
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