47% Republicans back Joe Biden's Covid-19 response but only 19% support his economic policy: Poll
President Joe Biden took office in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic which has hit the US the most and so far he has done a commendable job in tackling the crisis, if a new survey is to be believed. A new AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll released on Monday, May 10, has said that Biden’s pandemic approach has found a good approval in the Republican Party as well with a positive rating of 47 percent.
Overall, 71 percent of Americans have approved of the Democrat’s handling of the outbreak which has affected more than 32 million people in the country and killed more than 580,000. The poll, which covered 1,842 adults, was taken between April 29 and May 3 and has a margin of error of plus/minus 3.2 percentage points.
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The president has steady support among most Americans with an overall approval rating of 63 per cent – mostly increased by the public's perception of his response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The poll also showed overall optimism over the current state of affairs in the US. Fifty-four percent said the US is on the right track, which is more than any of the AP-NORC poll findings conducted since 2017. As against that, 44 percent felt the opposite.
The findings of the poll on Biden’s handling of the pandemic will come as a major booster for his administration which recently completed 100 days. Among the new president’s noteworthy steps to tackle the pandemic were a sweeping relief package worth $1.9 trillion and a successful vaccine rollout in which more than 200 millions shots were administered in a short time. “We are turning a corner,” White House Covid-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said.
Biden got less ratings on economy, immigration, gun control policy
However, Biden did less than satisfactorily in other key fields, including economy and immigration. The poll showed that while 91 percent of the Democrats hailed his economic policy aiming to script a turnaround in times of the pandemic that wreaked havoc, only 19 percent of the Republican voters supported it. Washington recently saw a number of economic proposals being floated but they came under criticism from the GOP. Overall, 57 percent approved of Biden's economic policy while 42 percent did not.
On the issue of immigration, only 43 percent approved of his handling of the crisis at the border where the number of unaccompanied minors has gone up and the Republicans have accused the president of compromising with national security by letting in people affected with the virus and those with tainted backgrounds. His disapproval rate on immigration was 54 percent.
On gun policy, too, Biden found himself having a deeply split support base. While 48 percent approved of his approach to the issue in the wake of a series of mass shootings across the nation, 49 percent disapproved of it.
Overall, Biden’s presidential job got an approval of 63 percent. Among the Dems, it was as high as 96 percent while among the Republicans, it was only 23 percent.