Joe Biden approval rating drops further with young Americans

[bisita]

Young Americans in new poll, Only 41% of young Americans approve of President Joe Biden's job performance, according to a new Harvard Institute of Politics poll of adults ages 18-29 released on Monday. That's down from 46% in fall 2021 and a 59% majority last spring -- a trend also seen in other recent surveys.

By comparison, according to past Harvard IOP polling, only 25% of young Americans approved of then-President Donald Trump heading into the 2018 midterm cycle. Twelve years ago, however, 56% approved of then-President Barack Obama ahead of the first midterm cycle of his presidency, when Democrats went on to lose the House in 2010.

Joe Biden's approval rating drops further with young Americans in new poll

Young adults give Biden better ratings for his handling of the coronavirus (52%) and the way he's addressed the situation in Ukraine (46% approve) than they do for his handling of the economy (34% approve). That's a similar pattern to how the full American public views Biden's handling of the issues.

A 69% majority of young voters who backed Biden in the 2020 election still approve of his job performance. Those young Biden voters who've soured on the President differ from those who still approve of his performance in a number of ways, the survey finds.

"Overall, Biden voters who now disapprove of his performance rate him more harshly on the economy," John Della Volpe, Harvard IOP's polling director, writes in the survey's release. "(T)hey see the current political system as ineffectual; they view the President as putting the interests of the elite over their own; they consume less political information; are more likely to be on Twitter; have less hope about the future; are more liberal; and more passionate about (canceling) student debt for everyone."

The poll, which surveyed 2,024 US adults between the ages of 18 and 29, was conducted on March 15-30 using a nationally representative online panel. The margin of error for the total sample is +/- 2.89 percentage points.

Young Americans' political disenchantment isn't confined to opinions of Biden. Just 40% approve of congressional Democrats' job performance, down from 52% in March 2021. And an even lower 31% approve of congressional Republicans' performance, little changed from 28% last spring.

And compared to spring 2018 -- heading into the previous midterm cycle -- young adults are more likely to agree with pessimistic sentiments about politics and their own political efficacy. A 56% majority say they agree that "politics today are no longer able to meet the challenges our country is facing," up from 45% in 2018. Currently, 36% agree that "political involvement rarely has any tangible results," up from 22% four years ago.

In an interview with CNN, Ed Kakenmaster, a 27-year-old who lives in Chicago, said he believes "younger people are burnt out by political discussions."

"For a lot of my friends it's like, 'Alright let's have fun and not talk about it as much,' so it will be interesting to see what happens in 2022 because I think there may be quite a few people who don't turn out to vote."

In the Harvard poll, 36% of adults under 30 say they "definitely" plan to vote in the midterms, similar to the 37% who said the same at this stage in 2018.

While Kakenmaster said he cast a ballot for Biden in 2020, citing qualms with Trump, he said he is "conservative leaning" and plans to vote Republican in 2022. He listed rising crime, dissatisfaction with Chicago Democrats' Covid-19 response, the Biden administration's handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and inflation as reasons why he will vote for the GOP in 2022.

"With inflation and how he has blamed (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Covid, and his failure to take responsibility for inflation -- that is something that has rubbed me the wrong way because he's the President, and you kind of expect for him to take ownership of that," Kakenmaster said of Biden.

In the Harvard poll, 29% of young Americans name economic-related topics such as inflation and cost of living when asked to name the national issue that concerned them most. Another 18% name foreign policy or national security issues, with 8% mentioning environmental issues. Just 4% cite Covid-19 as their top concern.

Yet for her part, Krezzia Basilio, a 20-year-old first generation Filipino American, told CNN she still considers Covid to be one the biggest national hurdles, and as a student at University of California, she said it directly impacts her life on campus. She also listed wages and student loan forgiveness as issues she prioritizes.

"I know that Biden's been talking a lot about loan forgiveness, which I think is very important, but I hope I can actually see it happen," she said.

The Biden administration's latest action on student debt will bring 3.6 million borrowers closer to loan forgiveness, CNN reported last week.

Basilio, who identified herself as on the left, said that while there is "not as much social media hype as compared to a presidential election," she is "just as equally motivated to vote" in 2022 as she was in 2020.

"As a voter in California voting on ballots like the presidential election, I don't think my vote carries that much weight," she said. "But I definitely feel like when it comes to propositions and more local elections, I feel like our vote definitely matters much more."

When asked by CNN what she views as the key issues ahead of the midterms, Caitlyn Foret, a 19-year-old student at the University of Houston who called herself "left leaning," told CNN she views "polarization" as one of the biggest issues facing America today.

Foret said she encourages younger voters to vote less on party labels and more on "all points of policy."
Many young Americans in minority groups also feel under threat because of their identity, the Harvard poll finds. A 59% majority of young Black adults say people of their racial background are under attack "a lot," as do 43% of young Asian American and Pacific Islander adults, 37% of young Hispanic adults, and 19% of young White adults. The share of young Black Americans who feel under a lot of attack is similar to where it stood five years ago, while the share of young Hispanic Americans who feel a similar level of threat has decreased since 2017.

Just under half of "LGBTQ-identifying youth," 45%, say they feel as though people with their sexual orientation are under attack a lot.

And 46% of young Republicans say they believe those who share their political views are under attack a lot, compared with 24% of young Democrats who say the same.

Jack Dillard, a 23-year-old from Atlanta who voted for Trump in 2020, said it is "a positive" that in "people are more comfortable sharing their opinions and voicing their own concerns" in today's political climate.

He added that all opinions should be "equally valued."

Yet, as a Trump-supporting conservative, Dillard said he is hesitant to speak out about his beliefs.
"I don't post about my politic(s)," he said, referring to his social media habits, "because I feel as though that's not the norm."

Joe Biden nominates Bridget Brink as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine

WASHINGTON (AP) — Bridget Brink, a veteran foreign service officer who has spent most of her career in the shadow of the former Soviet Union, has been nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine as the country fends off a Russian invasion that’s entered its third month.

The nomination comes as U.S. officials say American diplomats will soon return to Kyiv, which they evacuated when the war began. Ukrainian forces have since successfully defended the city, and most of the fighting has shifted toward the eastern part of the country.

Daniel Fried, a former U.S. ambassador to Poland who has known Brink for years, described her as “not reckless, but fearless,” and expected she’ll be eager to get to Kyiv.

“She’s going to want to be there,” Fried said. “And if you tell her it’s dangerous, she’ll be like, ‘Yeah, so?’”

A hockey fan and mother of two boys, Brink is currently the ambassador to Slovakia. She’s married to another foreign service officer, Nicholas Higgins, who has worked around the world.

Biden’s choice of Brink comes after a lengthy delay. Although the president has moved to fill other diplomatic posts around the world, he waited more than a year after taking office before settling on Brink, then nearly three more months for Monday’s announcement.

Even though former U.S. officials with European expertise have been puzzled by the lag, they were encouraged by Biden’s decision.

“People respect her,” Fried said. “They like her.”

Brink’s first posting was in Belgrade, Serbia, where she served during the war in the Balkans that lasted from 1998 to 1999. She also worked in Tbilisi, Georgia, before the Russian invasion in 2008.

While based in Washington, she worked on European issues at the National Security Council and the State Department.

Brink was nominated by then-President Donald Trump to be ambassador to Slovakia. During her swearing in ceremony in 2019, she shared a piece of “family lore” about her grandfather, who served as a U.S. Army doctor and helped evaluate General Dwight Eisenhower when he was up for a promotion during World War II. As the story goes, Brink said, Eisenhower’s blood pressure “was a bit high,” and her grandfather encouraged him to “lie down for a few minutes and think happy thoughts.”

Eisenhower passed his physical, earned his fourth star and led the invasion of Normandy that helped end the war.

Ukraine and Slovakia share a border of roughly 60 miles, and Slovakia has played an important role in the ongoing conflict. The country provided a S-300 air defense system to Ukraine, and it has accepted refugees fleeing the Russian invasion.

Brink met with people at the border when the invasion began.

“Amidst the heartbreaking scene of Ukrainian women and children crossing the border with Slovakia on foot, is incredible and professional work being done by Slovaks to welcome people escaping hostilities,” she said in a statement at the time.

The relationship between the U.S. and Ukraine has expanded and become more complex since the war began. Biden is in regular contact with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and billions of dollars in military and economic assistance are flowing from Washington to Kyiv. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin just visited the Ukrainian capital as well.

READ MORE: Satellite photos reveal suspected mass graves near Mariupol in Ukraine

Fried said there remains a vital role for Brink to play. Since she’ll be based in the country, she can build ties throughout the Ukrainian government. And it doesn’t hurt that Kyiv is seven hours ahead of Washington, Fried said, meaning Brink can help set the pace for the administration.

“She’ll be able to do what any ambassador does with the time advantage,” he said. “When Washington wakes up, you tell them what to do and how to do it.”

William Courtney, a former U.S. ambassador to Georgia and Kazakhstan, said Brink will have to start planning for postwar reconstruction even as the fighting continues.

Some of that work will involve seeking new policies within Ukraine, which has a long history of entrenched corruption that could make rich nations hesitate to open their pocketbooks.

“You want to have the institutions in place that can make reconstruction more effective,” said Courtney, an adjunct senior fellow at the RAND corporation. “And that builds confidence among donors.”

The last Senate-approved ambassador to Ukraine was Marie Yovanovitch, who was pushed out by then-President Trump in 2019.

She later testified that Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s lawyer and unofficial advisor, had urged Ukrainian officials to investigate unproven corruption allegations against Joe Biden, then a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination. Biden’s son, Hunter, had worked for an energy company in Ukraine named Burisma.

Trump held back $400 million in military assistance for Ukraine as he was pressing for investigations, conduct for which he was later impeached by the House of Representatives. He was not convicted in the Senate.