Most Voters Give Biden ‘Poor’ Rating on Crime, Immigration

President Joe Biden is doing a poor job on both immigration and crime, according to a majority of voters.

A new national telephone and online survey by Rasmussen Reports finds that only 31% of Likely U.S. voters rate Biden excellent or good for his handling of crime and law enforcement issues. That’s down from 34% in July. Fifty-one percent (51%) give Biden a poor rating for his handling of crime, up from 48% in July. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Voters rate Biden even worse on immigration, with just 27% rating him excellent or good for his handling of immigration-related issues, while 54% give him a poor rating. That continues the president’s declining approval from September, when 52% of voters rated him poor on immigration.

On both crime and immigration, even Democratic voters now rate Biden less favorably than they did before. On crime and law enforcement issues, for example, 57% of Democrats rate Biden excellent or good, down from 62% in July, while on immigration, the share of Democrats rating the president handling as excellent or good declined to 50% from 52% in September.

Majorities of both Republicans (78%) and voters not affiliated with either major party (60%) give Biden a poor rating for his handling of issues related to immigration. Similarly, 77% of Republicans and 56% of unaffiliated voters rate Biden poor for his handling of crime and law enforcement issues.

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The survey of 1,000 U.S. Likely Voters was conducted on December 19-20, 2021 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

More black voters (40%) than whites or other minorities (30% for both) rate Biden excellent or good for his handling of crime and law enforcement issues. Fifty-three percent (53%) of whites, 37% of black voters and 52% of other minorities give Biden a poor rating on crime issues.

Thirty-four percent (34%) of black voters, 26% of whites and 24% of other minorities rate Biden excellent or good for his handling of immigration-related issues. Fifty-seven percent (57%) of whites, 40% of black voters and 52% of other minorities give Biden a poor rating on immigration.

Voters under 40 are less likely than older voters to rate Biden poor on both crime and immigration.

Voters with annual incomes of $200,000 a year or more rate Biden better on both crime and immigration than do voters earning less. Those will college degrees are more favorable toward Biden than other voters.

Retirees rate Biden worse crime and immigration than do either government employees or private sector workers.

Both positive and negative views of Biden’s job performance are highly correlated across issues. Seventy-nine percent (79%) of voters who say Biden is doing an excellent job of handling immigration also give him an excellent rating on his handling of crime and law enforcement. Ninety-five percent (95%) of voters who rate Biden poor on his handling of crime also give him a poor rating on immigration issues.

However, even Biden’s strongest supporters rate his handling of immigration worse than they do his handling of crime. Among voters who Strongly Approve of Biden’s job performance as president, 58% rate him excellent on his handling of crime and law enforcement issues, but only 38% give him an excellent rating for his handling of immigration-related issues.

An overwhelming majority of American voters believe Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s multimillion-dollar effort to influence the 2020 presidential election was a bad thing for democracy, and most still think cheating influenced the election outcome.

Republican voters overwhelmingly say former President Trump represents their political views, but Democrats are less likely to say the same of President Joe Biden, and independent voters strongly prefer Trump to Biden.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

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