President Joe Biden's approval rating in blue states has plummeted in recent months, according to the latest polls.
Just 40 percent of likely voters in Michigan approve of Biden's performance as president—down 10 points since March—compared with 52 percent who disapprove, according to a poll released Wednesday by the Lansing, Mich.-based Marketing Resource Group. The president's rating among New Jersey voters has also fallen to 43 percent, according to a Wednesday Monmouth University poll, down 8 points since August. And while 53 percent of Marylanders approve of Biden's job performance, his rating has plummeted 9 points since March, according to a Goucher College poll released Tuesday.
The latest numbers are part of a nationwide collapse in the president's approval rating, even in states Biden won by significant margins during the 2020 election—Biden carried Maryland by 33 points and New Jersey by 16 points in his contest against former president Donald Trump. After recording a high of 57 percent in January, the president's national approval rating has tumbled to 42 percent, according to the latest Gallup poll. Biden's decline has been particularly acute among independents, whose support for the president has fallen 27 points since Inauguration Day. Biden now boasts the second-worst approval rating of any president at this point in his term.
A series of crises, including unchecked inflation, supply chain shortages, rampant illegal immigration, and the administration's botched troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, have precipitated the president's decline in approval. More than 67 percent of Michigan voters believe the country is on the wrong track, up from 52 percent in March, and a plurality of respondents point to the economy as their number-one concern, according to the Marketing Resource Group poll.
"The president's handling of the Afghanistan evacuation, higher gas prices, inflation, the voters' increased concern over the economy appears to be taking a real toll on the president's job approval numbers," said Tom Shields, the Marketing Resource Group's senior adviser. "With only 20 percent of the voters believing the country is on the right track, there seems to be very little confidence in the president at this time."
Inflation has spiked to a 13-year high on Biden's watch, driven in part by climbing energy prices. The cost of energy commodities has increased 41.7 percent over the last year, according to an October Labor Department report, and gas prices have jumped 57 percent. Sixty-two percent of voters blame Biden for the inflation surge, according to a recent Morning Consult/Politico poll.