When Newsweek is publishing bad news for Democrats and Joe Biden, the bad-news pile must be getting wide and high.
According to a new poll shared exclusively with the dinosaur news magazine, more registered voters blame Joe Biden for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than they do his predecessor, Donald Trump.
If Democrats choose to ignore this for now, they will certainly be forced to acknowledge it in November’s election, the poll suggests.
The majority of registered voters, including Democrats, even want the president to focus less on his green agenda and allow for a ramping up of U.S. petroleum production, such as occurred under President Trump. It is hard to enjoy being woke and green when the costs of groceries, goods and filling one’s gas tank have all doubled in a relatively short space of time.
The HarrisX poll asserts that while 42 percent of voters say that Trump’s policies are “more to blame about the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” a commanding 58 percent blame Biden. The results largely break along party lines. Among independents, 66 percent blame Biden and 34 percent blame Trump.
Nor did giving more response options help the current occupant of the White House. Some 40 percent still blame him; 26 percent blame Trump; 24 percent say neither are to blame and 10 percent say they are equally to blame.
Asked if “Russia’s attack on Ukraine makes you more or less likely to vote for one party or another in the 2022 mid-term elections,” 36 percent of respondents said they’re more likely to vote Republican and 24 percent said Democrat, while 31 percent said their votes won’t be affected. Among independents, 31 percent said they are more likely to vote Republican because of Biden’s handling of Ukraine while 13 percent say they’re now more likely to vote Democrat.
“Voters believe that Biden has projected weakness to Putin with the slow rollout of economic sanctions,” said Dritan Nesho, CEO of HarrisX. “If the Ukraine crisis drags on and is top of mind leading to the midterms, it looks like voters — especially independents — will punish Democratic leaders for slow and tepid actions.”
