Republicans have jumped to a 6-point lead in the generic ballot test, according to a new poll from The Federalist and Susquehanna Polling & Research. The poll found that 47 percent of likely voters would vote for the Republican candidate for Congress, while just 41 percent said they would vote for the Democrat candidate. In 2010, when Republicans flipped 63 seats to take back control of the U.S. House of Representatives, the party won the vote nationwide by 6.8 percentage points.
The poll, which surveyed 800 voters nationwide from Feb. 3 through Feb. 9, also found that a majority of voters continue to disapprove of the job President Joe Biden has done since taking office over a year ago. According to the poll, 52 percent of likely voters disapprove of Biden’s job, while 42 percent say they approve. Forty-six percent of those polled said they strongly disapproved of the president’s job thus far. Biden’s disapproval rating of 52 percent remains unchanged from the last poll conducted by The Federalist and Susquehanna Polling & Research in November of 2021.
Voters panned Biden’s performance on a host of different issues, including crime, illegal immigration, and inflation. Fifty-one percent of respondents disapproved of Biden’s handling of illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, 54 percent disapproved of Biden’s handling of inflation, and 50 percent disapproved of Biden’s handling of crime, which has skyrocketed over the last year. The lone bright spot for Biden, according to the poll, is his handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Fifty percent said they approved of his handling of the pandemic, with 44 percent voicing disapproval.
By a nearly 2-to-1 margin, respondents said they believed Covid-19 leaked from a lab in Wuhan, China. When asked if they believed Covid-19 originated in nature or if it leaked from a Chinese lab, 53 percent said it leaked from a lab, while just 28 percent said they believe it arose organically from nature. The poll’s findings that most Americans believe China created Covid-19 are especially striking given attempts by left-wing social media corporations over the last two years to censor users who expressed skepticism of the so-called natural origins theory.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, an overwhelming majority of likely voters said they did not trust the corporate news media to tell them the truth. In fact, 75 percent of respondents said they believe the corporate news media misrepresents facts in an effort to push a political agenda on their readers and viewers. Only 15 percent of those polled said they trust the corporate news media to tell the truth.
More than two-thirds of voters polled also panned Biden’s plan to select a new Supreme Court justice based entirely on sex and race. After Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announced his retirement, Biden promised to pick a candidate who was black and female. When asked whether Biden should select a candidate based on sex and race, 67 percent of those polled said Biden should consider all qualified individuals regardless of their skin color or sex. Only 27 percent of respondents said they approved of Biden’s plan only to select a black female for the job.
On the issue of education, voters continued to voice strong support for parents controlling their kids’ education. Fifty-six percent of respondents said parents should have a greater say in what is taught in K-12 schools, while 36 percent said that government school boards and employees should have the most say in what is taught in schools.
Full crosstabs of the poll’s results can be viewed here.
