A new poll of prospective American voters aged 18-34 revealed a huge 18-point plunge in approval of President Biden over the last year.
The Harvard Youth Poll conducted by the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University released its Spring 2022 results on Monday, showing Biden’s approval rating among young voters at 41%, as opposed to the 59% approval rating he garnered in the spring of 2021.
“The biggest problem is Biden’s cheap promises to forgive student debt,” Ed Morrissey of Hot Air posited. “It turned out to be far more difficult to achieve rather than promise.” The Harvard poll acknowledged, “When it comes to student loans, 85% of young Americans favor some form of government action on student loan debt, but only 38% favor total debt cancellation.”
The Harvard poll offered more good news for Republicans: “Compared with Spring 2018 Harvard IOP polling, the composition of the electorate looks different. Young Democrats (38% of 18–29-year-olds) are less likely (-5 points) and young Republicans (25% of 18-29-year-olds) are more likely (+7) to vote at this stage.”
Considering the fact that in recent history young voters tend to lean toward Democrats — as indicated by the fact that past polls showed former President Barack Obama and President Biden always polling approval ratings over 40% and as high as almost 60% while former President Trump languished in the 30-39% range — there was an additional nugget that favored Republicans, as the poll indicated that young voters are more apathetic about voting now than in recent years. The poll noted:
The percentage of youth agreeing that “political involvement rarely has any tangible results” has risen from 22% in 2018 to 36% in 2022. Agreement with the statement “I don’t believe my vote will make a real difference” increased from 31% in 2018 to 42% in 2022. Agreement that “politics today are no longer able to meet the challenges our country is facing” increased from 45% in 2018 to 56% in 2022.
American voters have indicated that the inflation spike over which Biden has presided has become their primary concern; an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in early December found that fear of the coronavirus was no longer Americans’ prime concern — the economy, with fear of inflation and rising cost of living, dwarfed the fear of the coronavirus.
The poll found a huge 68% of respondents mentioned the economy in some way as a top worry for 2022, as opposed to 37% naming the coronavirus. The AP stated:
Just 37% of Americans name the virus as one of their top five priorities for the government to work on in 2022, compared with 53% who said it was a leading priority at the same time a year ago. The economy outpaced the pandemic in the open-ended question, with 68% of respondents mentioning it in some way as a top 2022 concern. A similar percentage said the same last year, but mentions of inflation are much higher now: 14% this year, compared with less than 1% last year.