Ipsos Core Political : Presidential Approval Tracker (03/16/2022)
Washington, DC, March 16, 2022 – This week’s Ipsos’ Core Political finds Americans remain pessimistic about the direction of the country and most concerned about the economy and war and foreign conflict. President Joe Biden’s presidential approval rating remains stable.
Detailed Findings
Americans remain pessimistic about the direction of the country with three in five (61%) Americans believing it is off on the wrong track. The majority of Republicans (87%) and independents (62%) feel this way, and over a third of Democrats (37%) agree.
The economy, employment, and jobs (23%) remains the most important problem facing the U.S. today, although Americans are largely divided on the main issues. War and foreign conflict (16%) continues to be the second most important concern for Americans, followed by the healthcare system (9%) and immigration (7%). Public health which was a top three concern for most of last year, has dropped nine points since the beginning of this year (6% vs 15% in January).
Republicans (28%), independents (27%), and Democrats (20%) all agree the economy is the most important problem facing the country today. For Democrats (19%) and Republicans (15%), war and foreign conflict is the second most important issue, it has risen 15 points since last month among Democrats (19% vs 4% in mid-February) and 12 points among Republicans (15% vs 3%). Independents are divided between war/foreign conflict (11%) and the healthcare system (11%) for their second most important issue.
President Biden’s approval remains relatively stable at 43% compared to last week but around this time last year he had a 59% approval rating.
President Biden has largely retained his support among Democrats over the past year or so, with three-quarters (75%) of them approving of his performance in office. However, around this time last year he had the support of 92% of Democrats, a difference of seventeen points. Republicans have remained mostly disapproving of him, and only about a third of independents (31%) approve of him now compared to 56% in mid-March of last year.
Half (50%) of Americans want President Biden to prioritize the economy, up seven points from last month. Meanwhile, the proportion of Americans who believe COVID-19 should be one of President Biden’s priorities has decreased to 17% from 26% last month, a difference of nine points.
Partisans agree the economy should be President Biden’s top priority, particularly Republicans (60%) and independents (51%), but 44% of Democrats also agree. COVID-19 has always been a lower priority for Republicans and sometimes for independents too, but less Democrats believe it should be a priority now too. Only 21% of Democrats believe COVID-19 should be one of Biden’s priorities, down 16 points from February (37%).
Over half of Americans (53%) approve of the way President Biden has been handling coronavirus, up four points from mid-February, while his approvals on most other issues remain statistically unchanged.
Biden receives the highest approval from Democrats, particularly on his handling of COVID-19 (81%), employment and jobs (75%) and the environment (72%).
About the Study
These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between March 14-15, 2022. For this survey, a sample of 1,005 Americans age 18+ from the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii were interviewed online in English. The sample includes 439 Democrats, 351 Republicans, and 141 independents. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Americans been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including but not limited to coverage error and measurement error. The poll also has a credibility interval of ± 5.7 percentage points for Democrats, ± 6.4 percentage points for Republicans, and ± 10.1 percentage points for independents.
For more information on this news release, please contact:
Chris Jackson
Senior Vice President, US
Public Affairs
+1 202 420-2025
[email protected]
Annaleise Lohr
Director, US
Public Affairs
[email protected]
About Ipsos
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