Voters trust Republicans over Democrats by 17 percentage points to tame President Joe Biden’s inflation, a Wall Street Journal poll revealed Monday.
With the midterms just months away in November, 47 percent of voters trust Republicans to manage Biden’s inflation, while only 30 percent stated Democrats.
The electorate’s lack of trust in Democrats to fix inflation is devastating because it is the issue of the greatest worry for voters. Fifty-two percent of voters believe the economy is the greatest issue facing the nation, according to Thursday’s Navigator Survey. Yet only 30 percent said they think Biden is focusing on those issues.
This month, inflation has been exacerbated by gas price hikes. Already spiking about a dollar throughout Biden’s first year as president, gas prices have continued to rise throughout March, breaking records posted in 2008. Last week, the national average price of gas topped five consecutive record highs. Gas prices have increased by 83 cents in just one month.
Biden’s polling on the cost of gas is also terrible. Seventy percent of Americans disapprove of his handling of gas prices, a Sunday ABC News/Ipsos poll revealed.
Gas prices reach over $5.00 a gallon at a petrol station in Los Angeles, California; President Joe Biden speaks to the press as he departs the White House (inset) (BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI, FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty Images).
The poor economic marks for Biden and the Democrats heading into the midterms suggest Republicans will have a favorable election. The New York Times acknowledged as much Friday in a story titled “Bracing for Losses, Democrats Look to Biden for a Reset.”
The story noted that Democrats are “bracing for big losses” due to being “buffeted by rising gas prices, soaring inflation and sagging approval ratings.”
But Biden has refused to take responsibility for the sagging economy. For instance, what was once called “transitory” inflation is now “Putin’s price hike.” Before that shift, CNN labeled inflation “good,” which the Washington Post quickly reframed as “corporate greed.”
On Friday, Biden admitted he is “sick” of being blamed for inflation and again pointed to Russian President Vladimir Putin for his economic woes.
“I’m sick of this stuff. … The American people think the reason for inflation is the government spending more money,” Biden claimed. “Simply. Not. True.”
“Democrats didn’t cause this problem. Vladimir Putin did,” Biden added about inflation.
The WSJ poll sampled 1,500 voters March 2-7 with a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.