Pennsylvania’s views on President Joe Biden’s handling of the pandemic have shifted considerably since the spring.
Forty percent of respondents to a Morning Call/Muhlenberg College poll approve of Biden’s efforts today; 55% approved of them in the spring. Biden’s statewide disapproval rating on the issue now stands at 45%, up from 28% previously.
Biden campaigned for president in part on a pledge to better deal with the pandemic, and his early scores on that effort were good. But the emergence of the delta variant in July fueled a spike in COVID-19 cases and deaths that helped weaken his public support to politically dangerous lows.
!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(e){if(void 0!==e.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var t=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var a in e.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<t.length;r++){if(t[r].contentWindow===e.source)t[r].style.height=e.data["datawrapper-height"][a]+"px"}}}))}();
“Biden has taken a stark downward slide … on an issue that helped propel him to the White House in one of the most political states in the country,” said Chris Borick, Muhlenberg College political science professor and director of the school’s Institute of Public Opinion, who conducted the poll. “If he doesn’t see a rebound on this issue in [Pennsylvania] … he’s not on solid ground.”
In October, pollsters at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster asked Pennsylvania adults what had changed their minds about Biden in recent months. COVID-related issues ranked third (at 14%) behind the president’s handling of the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan (31%), and immigration flareups along the U.S./Mexico border (15%).
The White House this week announced mandatory COVID-19 tests for travelers flying into the U.S. as virologists race to understand the omicron variant, which the World Health Organization has labeled a “variant of concern.”
Support for Gov. Tom Wolf’s handling of the state’s pandemic response has fallen a bit since spring, from 40% then to 35% now.
!function(){“use strict”;window.addEventListener(“message”,(function(e){if(void 0!==e.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var t=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var a in e.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r=0;r<t.length;r++){if(t[r].contentWindow===e.source)t[r].style.height=e.data["datawrapper-height"][a]+"px"}}}))}();
