(NewsNation) — President Joe Biden’s approval rating remains near rock bottom as Americans now squarely blame him for America’s economic and inflation woes, according to the latest NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll released Thursday.
A clear majority of voters, 58%, disapprove of Biden’s performance, according to the poll, which surveyed 1,006 registered voters on topics including inflation, the economy and the Jan. 6 hearings, among other issues. It was conducted Sunday and Monday.
Biden’s approval ratings are among the lowest since NewsNation started polling voters in December. In last month’s poll, about 57% of voters disapproved of the president’s performance.
The widespread disapproval comes as Democratic and Republican candidates are neck-in-neck for Americans’ votes, according to the NewsNation poll. About 43% of respondents said they would vote for a Democratic congressional district and the same was true for Republicans.
“If I’m Joe Biden or, especially right now, if I’m a Democratic candidate in a really competitive battleground House district, the thing I really care about more than anything is what’s going on with that inflation number and especially what’s going on with gas prices and things in the grocery store,” said Kiel Williams, Decision Desk HQ senior data scientist .
Consumer prices last month rose nearly 9% from a year ago, with surging prices for gas, shelter and food as the biggest contributors.
Forty-one percent of voters say Biden is responsible for the state of the economy, according to the NewsNation/Decision Desk poll. That was followed by Republicans in Congress (21%), financial institutions (19%) and Democrats in Congress (18%).
Fifty-three percent of voters surveyed said they’re worse off financially now than they were one year ago.
In San Francisco this weekend, 28-year-old salesman Tim Klein said he’s foregoing spending at places such as restaurants and hotels in an attempt to save more.
“(I’m) just being more efficient because I am absolutely feeling the pain of inflation,” Klein said.
Mattoon, Illinois phlebotomist Wendy Patterson said rising gas prices have prevented her family from taking their summer vacation to Florida.
“I don’t know how people are going to survive,” she said. “You’re basically working to get gas.”
Overwhelmingly, concern about inflation takes precedence over that of unemployment, COVID-19 and crime, according to the NewsNation/Decision Desk poll. Seventy-two percent of Americans ranked inflation chief among those concerns. Next on the list was crime (15%) and then COVID-19 (10%).
The president’s approval rating in the NewsNation/Decision Desk poll is in line with other recent polling. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research, for example, published its own findings late last month that stated only 39% of U.S. adults approve of Biden’s performance as president.
NewsNation digital producers Liz Jassin, Cassie Buchman and J.J. Bullock contributed to this report.