The coronavirus is infecting President Biden’s image.
Mr. Biden won the public’s trust with his vow to do more to stop the spread of COVID-19 than his predecessor, but 11 months into his tenure, the public is growing weary of surging cases and new virus variants.
John Couvillon, founder of JMC Analytics and Polling, said Mr. Biden made a mistake when he declared in a July Fourth address that the nation was “closer than ever to declaring our independence from a deadly virus” and the virus “no longer controls our lives.”
“The reality is that the public is going to lose confidence in the competence of Biden to handle the situation.” Mr. Couvillon said. “If you remember, that was Joe Biden’s calling card in the election, where he promoted competence, and that calling card had a particular resonance among independent suburbanites.”
In one glaring example, Mr. Biden promised Americans easy access to COVID-19 tests. Yet in the run-up to Christmas weekend with the omicron variant of the coronavirus quickly spreading, the testing supply isn’t meeting demand.
The situation put Mr. Biden on the defensive.
“I don’t think it’s a failure,” Mr. Biden said when pressed about it Wednesday on ABC’s “World News Tonight.” “You could argue that we should have known a year ago, six months ago, two months ago, a month ago. … I wish I had thought about ordering 500 million at-home tests two months ago.”
Mr. Biden has been stressing the importance of testing for a year. Members of his administration, including top medical adviser Dr. Anthony Fauci, raised the alarm a month ago about the fast-spreading omicron.
“Come on,” Mr. Biden snapped another time a reporter asked why testing wasn’t increased sooner. “What took so long? Well, what took so long didn’t take long at all. What happened was the omicron virus spread even more rapidly than anybody thought.”
Mr. Biden campaigned on the idea that President Trump was too flippant about the threat of COVID-19 and too slow to respond.
Exit polls in the 2020 presidential election showed that almost one-quarter of the electorate saw the rise of COVID-19 as the “most important” factor to their votes.
Among those voters, Mr. Biden outperformed Mr. Trump by a 61% to 38% margin and carried 81% of voters who said the COVID-19 was their top issue.
A year later, polls show voter confidence in Mr. Biden’s handling of the pandemic has fallen from more than 70% to less than 50%.
The loss of confidence is bleeding into the president’s overall approval rating, which has sunk from 55% to 43% this year, according to the latest RealClearPolitics average of polls.
For Democrats, it is a bad omen.
They already face historical headwinds as they look to defend the party’s fragile House and Senate majorities.
Mr. Biden also is closing out the year without his $1.75 trillion social welfare and climate bill, the centerpiece of his agenda.
As for the coronavirus, Mr. Biden’s latest headache is the omicron variant, which is ripping through at least 90 countries and most U.S. states.
First detected around Thanksgiving, omicron is the dominant strain across the country. Mr. Biden has acknowledged that vaccinated and unvaccinated people alike are susceptible to infections.
He is pleading with Americans to get vaccinations and booster shots in larger numbers so COVID-19 won’t overrun hospitals.
He also is fending off criticism for waiting until Christmas week to announce an ambitious plan that involves military doctors and tests that will be sent to homes, though not until January.
Testing lines snake around the block in New York City, and holiday gatherings and New Year’s Eve parties are in peril. Most Americans didn’t think COVID-19 would be a problem one year into the vaccine push and nearly two years after the virus reared its head.
Scenes are similar in the District of Columbia. The city is handing out free testing kits to people willing to wait in massive lines. Starting Jan. 15, people must show proof of vaccination to enter restaurants, entertainment venues and gyms in the District.
The National Hockey League paused its season two days before a scheduled Christmas break after numerous players were placed in coronavirus protocols.
The rollercoaster ride has opened Mr. Biden to more criticism from Republicans and his predecessor.
“Joe Biden was supposedly ‘elected’ because he was going to quickly get rid of COVID-19, sometimes referred to as the China Virus,” Mr. Trump said in a statement this week. “How’s that working out?”
For more information, visit The Washington Times COVID-19 resource page.
