While Joe Biden is clearly in denial about the threat of inflation, voters are not.
According to a new Morning Consult/Politico poll, 59 percent of registered voters believe Biden’s economic policies are to blame for inflation in the United States, which is currently at a 13-year high. That includes 39 percent of voters who said Biden’s policies are “very responsible” for the high inflation. It’s not just Republicans blaming Biden either, as 41 percent of Democrats blame Biden’s policies.
Earlier this month, the White House was widely mocked for bragging that Americans would save 16 cents on their Independence Day barbecue this year compared to 2020. It wasn’t even an accurate estimate, but one thing was clear: the Biden White House was desperately trying to get Americans to turn a blind eye to inflation, and it didn’t work.
Biden eventually conceded that inflation is happening but insists it’s only temporary.
“We also know that as our economy has come roaring back, we’ve seen some price increases. Some folks have raised worries that this could be a sign of persistent inflation, but that’s not our view,” Biden said a couple of weeks ago. “Our experts believe the data shows that most of the price increases we’ve seen were expected and are expected to be temporary. Reality is, you can’t flip the global economic light [switch] back on and not expect this to happen.”
Biden’s remedy for inflation, sadly, is more spending. It doesn’t seem that voters believe in his solution to the inflation problem, as the Morning Consult/Politico poll shows that an increasing number of voters also expect prices to continue to go up—54 percent in June, up from 36 percent in January.
One bright spot for Biden is that only 2 in 5 voters expect the economy to get worse in the next year—but those expectations largely fall along partisan lines, as only 17 percent of Democrats expect the economy to get worse, compared to 61 percent of Republicans and 38 percent of Independents.
The economy is clearly having an impact on Joe Biden’s poll numbers. According to a most recent Gallup poll, after hovering between 54 and 57 percent for months, Joe Biden’s approval is now at 50 percent—largely due to a decline in approval from Democrats and independents.
