When voters are asked for a single word to encapsulate Joe Biden’s presidency, the responses paint a harsh picture: words like “Old,” “inflation,” and “falling” dominate the conversation. Despite this, Biden is set to take the stage in Washington on Tuesday with a mission to shape his legacy as the president who revitalized the economy post-pandemic.
This upcoming event, labeled by the White House as a discussion on his “middle-out, bottom-up economic playbook,” will take place at the Brookings Institution. However, recent data from a voter attitude survey conducted with J.L. Partners suggests that the 82-year-old president will be primarily remembered for the soaring inflation and his perceived personal weaknesses, even among those who support him.
Visualized through a word cloud, the survey results prominently feature the word “Old” at the center, surrounded by other critical descriptors such as “confused,” “memory,” and “prices.” These words reflect the prevailing sentiments among voters as they assess Biden’s time in office.
But our latest survey of voter attitudes with J.L. Partners show the 82-year-old will mostly be remembered for crippling inflation and his own personal frailties, even by his supporters.
When the results are show in a word cloud, the dominant word at the center is: Old.
It is surrounded by other unflattering terms, including confused, memory and prices.
Positive terms include compassion, caring and helping.
James Johnson, cofounder of J.L. Partners, said voters had delivered a scathing overall verdict.
Voters were asked to describe their main memories of President Joe Biden’s time in office
Biden is due to give a speech Tuesday on his ‘his middle-out, bottom-up economic playbook.’ But as he burnishes his legacy, voters see a string of failures
‘There is no Biden legacy. That is the view of the public,’ he said.
‘They feel he has presided over a poor economy, towering prices, and a broken southern border.
‘Worse, they do not even feel he has been fully aware of the consequences of his own premiership, with deep seated concerns about his age and health dominant among them.
‘Ask voters what Biden’s legacy is in focus groups and they do not point out his successes – instead one is met by a laugh of derision.’
Biden’s age caught up with him during the election campaign. He was forced to end his reelection bid as allies lined up to tell him to make way for someone with a better chance of beating Donald Trump.
He leaves office on January 20.
In the meantime, he and his aides are attempting to burnish his successes and cement a legacy.
He will stand down with a string of legislative achievements to his name and will leave behind a healthy economy having navigated the end of the pandemic.
When voters were asked for the best thing about his presidency, some 19 percent mentioned his insulin price cap, which reduced medicine prices for diabetics.
Another 17 percent talked about COVID stimulus checks, which put money in the pockets of Americans to keep the economy moving during the pandemic.
But that answer tied with the number who said the were ‘unsure’ when asked to list three achievements.
The top answers when they were asked for the worst things about his presidency were: Inflation, the state of the southern border, and the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Overall, voters said they viewed Biden as the worst president in recent memory. They ranked him below even Richard Nixon, who was forced to leave office before he was impeached amid the Watergate crisis, after it emerged he was tried to cover up dirty tricks used by his supporters in his reelection campaign.
The scandal ran so deep it poisoned the way voters looked at politicians for a generation.
And Biden’s personal rating sank further just last weekend, after he went back on his promises and pardoned his son Hunter.
More than half of voters (polled separately after the pardon was announced) said Biden was wrong to make that decision.
The result was that Biden’s historically low approval rating drops another four points, to 37 percent, according to the survey of 804 registered voters.
