Biden coronavirus response approval slips in new poll

Approval of President Biden’s handling of the coronavirus has slipped in recent weeks, according to a new poll.

The survey, conducted by Quinnipiac University, found that 53 percent of respondents approved of Biden’s handling of COVID-19. While still a majority approval, that number is down more than 10 points from May, when 65 percent of those surveyed approved of the job he was doing with regards to the pandemic.

Forty percent of those in last week’s poll said they disapprove of the president’s handling of the coronavirus, which was up 10 points from the 30 percent who said they disapproved in May.

A CBS News and YouGov poll conducted just a few weeks ago in mid-July found that 66 percent of polled adults in the U.S. approved of Biden’s handling of COVID-19. Twenty-six percent of respondents said the president was doing a “very good” job at handling the pandemic, while 40 percent said he was doing a “somewhat good” job.

Sixteen percent of those polled at that time said the president’s job on COVID-19 was “somewhat bad,” and 18 percent rated it as “very bad.”

Biden’s slipping approval rating on his handling of COVID-19 comes as concerns rise regarding the highly infectious delta variant of the virus, which has taken a firm grip in the U.S. as the dominant coronavirus strain.

The variant, which is more transmissible than other COVID-19 strains, is driving a considerable increase in infections throughout the U.S., particularly in areas with low vaccination rates.

The majority of individuals in the U.S. hospitalized with and dying from COVID-19 in recent weeks have been unvaccinated.

Biden’s overall approval rating also slipped in the Quinnipiac poll, dropping to 46 percent from 49 percent in May.

The survey polled 1,290 U.S. adults nationwide between July 27-Aug. 2. The margin of error is plus or minus 2.7 percentage points.