This month's Daily Kos/Civiqs poll was another deliberate effort to home in on why voters seem generally dissatisfied with President Joe Biden and Democrats right now. Not only are Biden's approval ratings eight points underwater, but Democrats took a political hit Tuesday with heavy losses in Virginia and an uncomfortably close win in New Jersey.
Readers of this site often fill my comment section with questions about why people are unhappy with President Biden. Everyone has their own suspicions, but here’s some data that can help get us closer to the truth of what is leaving voters most disgruntled.
What emerged overall was a lot of dissatisfaction on both sides of the aisle. Asked whether their quality of life now is better than it was at the beginning of this year (when Biden took office), just 20% of registered voters said it was better now while 44% said it was worse now and 33% said it’s about the same. Additionally, of the 16 policy issues Civiqs asked about, voters expressed dissatisfaction of 50% or higher on fully 10 items.
Perhaps surprisingly, issues that often resonate—such as housing, employment, and crime—were relatively low on the list of concerns. The same was true of how voters felt about the state of the COVID-19 pandemic in their local area: Just 36% counted themselves dissatisfied with the situation while 38% said they were satisfied and 22% said they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.
What jumped out on the dissatisfaction scale were financial and inflationary issues related to the price of gas and household goods, personal savings, and the wealth gap “between the rich and everyone else.” Race relations and the quality of local education also registered high on voters’ list of concerns.
But the single biggest concern was the state of democracy in America, with 88% saying they were dissatisfied with it.
Below is the top 10 list of voters’ grievances, followed by partisan crosstabs. For each item, voters were asked whether they were satisfied, dissatisfied, neither, or not affected by it.
|
Total (dissatisfied/satisfied) |
DEmocrat (dissatisfied/satisfied) |
Republican (dissatisfied/satisfied) |
Independent (dissatisfied/satisfied) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| State of Democracy | 88%, 5% | 86%, 7% | 90%, 3% | 89%, 4% |
| Gas prices | 78%, 5% | 59%, 9% | 97%, 2% | 80%, 3% |
| Price of Household goods | 75%, 11% | 57%, 21% | 92%, 3% | 78%, 8% |
| Race Relations | 63%, 11% | 79%, 6% | 50%, 14% | 57%, 14% |
| Personal Savings | 59%, 23% | 56%, 28% | 60%, 22% | 60%, 18% |
| Wealth Gap | 58%, 10% | 91%, 2% | 20%, 21% | 57%, 8% |
| Quality of local education | 58%, 16% | 42%, 26% | 71%, 9% | 64%, 13% |
| price of health care | 57%, 21% | 59%, 24% | 54%, 22% | 58%, 16% |
| Freedom to live as one pleases | 51%, 34% | 26%, 56% | 73%, 17% | 59%, 26% |
| Local Infrastructure | 50%, 30% | 59%, 26% | 38%, 36% | 49%, 30% |
Places of real partisan agreement included dissatisfaction with the state of democracy, personal savings, and the price of health care. (Note: This is not to say that Democrats, Republicans, and independents agree on what’s ailing our democracy, just that it’s a key area of dissatisfaction for all three groups.)
Republicans top three concerns were gas prices, the price of household goods, and the state of American democracy—all registering at 90% dissatisfaction or above.
Democrats top three concerns were the wealth gap (91%), the state of democracy (86%), and race relations (79%).
Independents’ top concerns were the state of democracy (89%), gas prices (80%), and the price of household goods (78%).
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