DANGER ZONE: How Will the Nets React to Biden Cratering to the 30s in Polling?

It’s official. Joe Biden is now the unpopularity record holder. Tuesday, February 9, 2022 saw the release of Joe Biden’s second-largest ever unpopularity record. Democrat’s approval rating dropped into the 30s. Four new polls found him at 41, 40,41 or 38. Real Clear Politics (RCP’s) average dropped to 39.8 With his disapproval, up to 54.4

By way of comparison, George W. Bush didn’t drop into the 30s until well into his second term, March 2, 2006. What will the journalists do with this horrible news? 

Rasmussen is responsible for the new polls. Politico/Morning Consult IBDThe network’s morning and evening newscasts ignored the worst numbers in the past week, according to /TIPP. This is where the worst results came from IBD, finding Biden at just 38 percent. Two days after publication, ABC, CBS, and NBC all ignored the report. 

Here’s the RCP average that pushed Biden into the 30s. 

Here’s RCP’s chart showing his shocking decline, a 16 point average fall from January 28, 2021. 

Biden’s polling average of 39.8 is now two full points below Donald Trump four years ago. On February 9, 2018, the Republican averaged an approval of 41.8 and a disapproval of 53.8. 

It’s not as though the network newscasts are pretending Biden is popular, but they certainly are trying to avoid the crushingly bad numbers. On last Friday’s Nightly News, anchor Lester Holt cheered better-than-expected jobs numbers: “President Biden taking a victory lap, as new jobs report blows past expectations despite Omicron.” On ABC’s World News Tonight, anchor touted, “President Biden welcoming the news saying, quote, ‘America is back to work.’” 

Yet, on Wednesday, with the glut of new, bad polling, ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Mornings and NBC’sToday didn’t mention Biden’s name once, let alone the new numbers. 

Biden fell below Trump in RCP’s average polling from their presidencies last week. Here is my account of the terrible polling that occurred in January. 

Quinnipiac – a respected main polling agency – found the president as of January 12th. at a shockingly low 33 percent. On January 13, all three networks ran it on their respective channels. It was up to MSNBC, of all places, where host Stephanie Ruhle conceded: “As the White House juggles all of these issues, there was some more troubling numbers out. According to the Quinnipiac, Joe Biden is only 33% in favor according to today’s Quinnipiac survey. That is a new low for his presidency.” 

In October 2021, I wrote a NewsBusters study finding that the networks covered Trump’s low polling almost two-to-one more than they did for Biden. This was an analysis of the August-October 2017 and August-October 2021 periods, which were tumultuous times for both presidents. 

The history of Biden making him unpopular has given journalists a couple options: Honestly report the poor news on President Biden and the grim outlook for Democrats in 2022. 2. Adopt a “Biden? Who’s Biden?” attitude and not cover him. 3. Alert Democrats to the danger as a way of saving the party from total disaster in the midterms. Given the corruption of the network news media, number one isn’t really an option. You can expect a mixture of both the first and third choices.