He’s fallen, and he can’t get up. Last month’s Quinnipiac poll showed Joe Biden’s job approval at 37/52, which at the time looked like an outlier. Instead, the normally Dem-friendly poll delivered even worse news for Biden today and Democrats in general, especially when it comes to independents:

Americans give President Biden a negative 36 – 53 percent job approval rating, while 10 percent did not offer an opinion. It’s the lowest job approval rating he’s received in a Quinnipiac University national poll. In mid-October, he received a negative 37 – 52 percent job approval rating.

In today’s results, Republicans disapprove 94 – 4 percent, Democrats approve 87 – 7 percent, and independents disapprove 56 – 29 percent with 16 percent not offering an opinion.

Taking a peek at the demos below, Biden’s floor has dropped among most of them. Except among Democrats and black Americans, strong disapproval outstrips strong approval in every demo. He’s at 43/45 among women, which is bad enough for a demo as important to Democrats as this one, but it’s 27/39 in terms of strong approval/disapproval. Biden’s support is both declining and softening, while disapproval is both expanding and hardening.

Biden not only hit a new low on overall job approval, he hit new lows on all four policy areas measured by Quinnipiac. Biden’s underwater on COVID-19, 45/50, the best policy score in the poll. On climate change, he scores a 41/48, the only area in which a majority doesn’t disapprove. Biden only scores a 33/55 on foreign policy — remember when his Afghanistan retreat was going to be popular? And his worst assessment comes on the economy, 34/59.

He’s not doing great on personal traits, either:

• Cares about average Americans: 47/47
• Honest: 42/51
• Leadership: 37/57

Yikes. Democrats thought they would get a lot more mileage out of Biden on all three of those personal traits, especially when succeeding Donald Trump. Instead, they bought a confidence-crisis cascade on performance along with a character debate to boot.

Accordingly, Democrats’ prospects in the midterms have only gotten worse, even in the Q-poll series:

Americans say 46 – 38 percent they would want to see the Republican Party win control of the House of Representatives, while 16 percent did not offer an opinion.

Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly back their own parties. Independents say 41 – 31 percent they would want to see Republicans win control of the U.S. House of Representatives, while 28 percent did not offer an opinion.

Americans say 46 – 40 percent they would want to see the Republican Party win control of the U.S. Senate, while 15 percent did not offer an opinion. Independents say 44 – 34 percent that they would want to see the Republican Party win control of the U.S. Senate, and 22 percent did not offer an opinion.

In both cases, the problem for Democrats is a stampede of independents from their banner. They won those votes last year by promising a return to normalcy, competence, and cooperation. Biden has failed miserably on all three counts, which not only explains his crashing numbers but also those of the party that foisted him on voters.

However, the economy likely has had some impact on the collapse as well. Despite the happy talk from progressives about how good everyone has it now, 61% of respondents say the economy has gotten worse, and 68% have had to change their spending habits because of inflation. That’s certain to have a political impact of some sort, especially when it includes these experiences:

• 53 percent say they are not finding groceries they want to buy at a grocery store;
• 50 percent say they are not finding consumer goods they want to buy at a retail/online store;
• 52 percent say they are experiencing long delays in the delivery of items they purchased.

Here again the demos are sobering for Democrats. Only 24% of women think the economy is excellent or good, with 76% of them finding it not so good or poor. (It’s almost identical for the subset of white women, by the way.) Sixty percent of college graduates rate the economy negatively, as do 78% of those under 35. Among Hispanics, the breakout is 31/68. Those are not winning numbers for Democrats.

Can they rebound? Only if Joe Biden recognizes his errors and starts correcting them. And since that seems unlikely, given Biden’s inability to accept criticism, Democrats will remain strapped to Biden’s hood as he continues to plunge off the polling cliff.