The Sconi

A new ABC/Ipsos poll highlights President Joe Biden’s ongoing struggles to connect with voters on a number of critical fronts.

Researchers found that just 37% of Americans now approve of the president’s handling of the economic recovery.

The disconnect comes as nothing new for Biden, with researchers noting that his approval rating is now 3% below where it stood back in April and 16% below where it was nearly a year ago, a recent ABC News/Ipsos news release said. At that time, more than half of Americans (53%) indicated they approved of the job the president was doing.

"While Biden’s standing on these issues remains largely unchanged from the last time these questions were asked in April, this poll also illustrates that the economy is poised to be an extremely important factor in the midterm elections this November," researchers said in a release.

Approximately one quarter of all Americans now approve of the administration’s handling of both gas prices (27%) and inflation (28%). Even among Democrats, researchers found Biden’s struggles to run deep, with just 56% of respondents approving of his handling of inflation and that number dropping to 51% approval of the way he has handled the country’s ongoing gas price crisis.

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Consumer Price Index (CPI) data for the 12 months ending with May 2022, which points to an 8.6% all items annual increase, a 0.3% hike from last month and a new four-decade high. The largest individual increases were seen in the areas of shelter, gasoline and food.

In Wisconsin, AAA reported that as of June 13, gas prices stood at $4.92 per gallon, and the national average reached $5.01, which represented "an all-time high never seen since AAA began collecting pricing data in 2000."

Just last month, the index for gasoline climbed 4.1%, more than offsetting April’s drop and continuing a trend that has seen the index rise by 48.7% over the last 12 months, BLS said. During the month of April, the shelter index increased 0.6%, the largest monthly increase in nearly two decades. The food index rose 1.2% in May, while the food at home index increased 1.4%.

Researchers found that among Americans who indicate they are very enthusiastic to vote in November, two out of three, or 66%, said the economy will be extremely important in their vote, while 62% said the same about inflation. By contrast, less than one in three, or 30% of the respondents, said the COVID-19 pandemic will be extremely important, highlighting how the economy has far outpaced the pandemic as an issue most Americans now view as being more pressing.

The two-day Ipsos poll was conducted June 3-4 using the probability-based KnowledgePanel. A nationally representative probability sample of 542 adults age 18 or older was surveyed.