Americans feel U.S. President Joe Biden is lacking the fortitude and strength to forge a role on a troubled world stage, with a poll Thursday showing voters have yet to rally around his leadership.
Biden’s long-running and well documented negative approval rating has not budged as a consequence, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Few are very confident he can handle a crisis, lead the military or promote the standing of the United States in the world while a majority thinks he lacks toughness specifically in dealing with Russia.
Only 43 percent of Americans approve of Biden and a similar percentage approve of his handling of the relationship with Moscow. Both measures are little different from an AP-NORC poll conducted days before the Feb. 24 invasion, AP reports.
As Biden spends the next four days in Europe trying to rally support for an effort to confront Russia, back home his own support is anything but guaranteed.
The poll numbers reveal only about a quarter are very confident Biden has the ability to handle a crisis, promote U.S. standing in the world or effectively manage the U.S. military, though most have at least some confidence.
Fifty-six percent of Americans think Biden has not been tough enough on Russia, while 36 percent say his approach has been “about right.”
The AP-NORC poll of 1,082 adults was conducted March 17-21 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population.
The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.