In retrospect, what’s striking is how quickly Biden’s credibility on Covid eroded. When he took office, his favorable rating on Covid policy stood at a robust +27 points, according to YouGov’s historical polling data; just a year later, in January 2022, that figure stood at –12 points. By then, many Americans had grown weary of lockdowns and enraged by continued school closures as evidence mounted that they were unnecessary and harmful. Migration data showed a huge upswing in Americans moving from locked-down Democratic states to reopened-and-thriving Republican states. The press increasingly referred to a “post-pandemic” America even as Biden kept wearing his mask. Covid rapidly receded as an electoral issue.
Perhaps more significantly, as Covid faded into the background, voters’ perception of Biden on other matters soured. By September 2022, polls rated the president’s performance on a dozen issues—including the economy, education, foreign policy, government spending, immigration, and crime—even lower than his work on Covid. This may tell us something about why his campaign wants to talk about the virus again.
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