Brand New Pew Poll Drops Some Bad News On Biden Over His Handling Of The COVID Crisis

Americans are not anywhere near as confident in President Joe Biden’s ability to handle the public health impact of the pandemic as they were right after he took office back in January of last year.

The latest survey, which was conducted from Jan. 10-17, 44 percent of the respondents stated they were either very or somewhat confident in the president’s ability to handle the COVID pandemic, according to reports from The Washington Post.

This is drop of 21 percentage points since polling conducted in March 2021, when 65 percent of individuals who responded to the poll said they were confident in how Biden would handle the pandemic.

via Newsmax:

The poll involved 5,128 adults on Pew’s nationally representative American Trends Panel, and also shed light on other aspects of the pandemic:

  • 50% say they think the “worst is still to come.”
  • 49% said they think the worst times are over.
  • 69% said they believe COVID-19 is a major threat to the economy.
  • 25% said they think the pandemic is a minor threat; 5% said it is no threat.

Meanwhile, 57% of those surveyed said they think COVID-19 is a major threat to the health of the U.S. population, while 35% said it poses a minor threat, and 8% said it poses no threat.

Those opinions changed just slightly since August, but there are still wide differences in how people view the pandemic based on their political beliefs:

  • 76% of Democrats see the virus as a health threat, compared to 34% of Republicans.
  • 74% of Democrats say the virus is a threat to the economy, as do 66% of Republicans.
  • 38% of Democrats say the pandemic is a threat to their personal health, compared to 20% of Republicans.
  • 35% of Democrats said the pandemic threatens personal finances vs. 28% of Republicans.
  • 53% of Republicans said the worst of the pandemic has passed, vs. 47% of Democrats.

“The Pew survey comes after an Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index poll that shows that while an overwhelming majority of Americans say they agree with the Biden administration’s move to mail free COVID-19 at-home tests to people who ask for them and to make free N95 masks available, that approval hasn’t boosted the president’s approval numbers,” the report stated.

A total of 84 percent stated they agreed with both programs, but 46 percent of those who responded stated that they trust Biden to provide accurate information about the virus, which is a figure that hasn’t changed since October of 2021.