Republican House is bottoming out already

| 9:09 am EST January 27, 2023
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For the past year we’ve heard nonstop fretting from the media and pundit class about President Joe Biden’s approval rating. We keep hearing about how it’s supposedly in the low thirties, even though the averages on sites like 538 and RCP make clear that it’s actually in the low forties. And the Democrats’ historically strong performance in the midterms suggests that Biden’s approval rating is actually much more popular than that. If anything, Biden appears to be on a clear path to reelection in 2024 if he decides to run.

Meanwhile there is a major story shaping up with regard to approval ratings. Only around thirty percent of Americans think the Republican House is going to do a good job, while only around twenty percent of Americans believe in new “Speaker” Kevin McCarthy, according to a new CNN poll. This is just one poll, but there is good reason to expect that other polling outlets will come up with similar numbers.

Some will argue that this doesn’t much matter, because Congress on the whole always tends to have a low approval rating. But this is different in that it’s the start of a new term and the start of Republicans’ control of the House, meaning their numbers should be at the highest point they’re going to be. If these numbers are the best the Republicans are going to be able to do this term, then it should be easy for President Biden to run circles around them in terms of leverage and negotiating position. And it’s obviously putting the Democrats in good position heading into 2024.