On Thursday’s broadcast of “CNN News Central,” co-host Kate Bolduan and CNN Senior Data Reporter Harry Enten said that it’s puzzling that President Joe Biden’s economic approval numbers are terrible, but Enten noted that inflation is “still way up” and at 12% over the past two years and people are “taking the longer-range view” on the economy.
Enten said, “The only one who was noticeably worse was Jimmy Carter. We always said Donald Trump had such a low approval rating, right? But if you look, what you see is that Donald Trump’s approval rating was actually slightly larger than Joe Biden’s was at this point. … So, he’s doing worse than Trump, who he was always saying was doing so poorly. And I’ll note the reason why his approval rating is so low at this point is because it comes down to the economy. If you look at Joe Biden’s approval on the economy right now, it stinks. … And that’s the top issue in our poll.”
Bolduan then said, “The timing of the poll is important as well. This is polled through the month of July. This is also as there’s been a slew of good reports on the economy [that have been] coming in. That must be a real head-scratcher for the Biden team.”
Enten responded, “I think it is a real head-scratcher. And it’s just something we’ve seen, even as the economy’s gotten better, Joe Biden’s overall approval rating and his approval rating on the economy really [haven’t] gotten much better. But the thing I’ll note, inflation, yes, it’s down compared to a year ago. But compared to two years ago, it’s still way up. So, I think people are taking the longer-range view than just the shorter one over the last year.”
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