FDU Poll: “Green Lanternism” holding down Biden’s approval ratings

“Green Lanternism” holding down Biden’s approval ratings

Americans think the President can control inflation, gas prices and more. To get his ratings up, Biden needs to convince Americans that he can’t get very much done

Fairleigh Dickinson University, Madison, NJ, May 11, 2022 – Only 38 percent of Americans approve of the job Joe Biden is doing as President, and the latest survey results from the FDU Poll show that this is largely due to the belief that Presidents have a lot of influence over things that they actually have very little control over. Political scientists refer to the belief that Presidents could do more if they just tried as “Green Lanternism,” referring to the DC Comics superhero whose power is limited only by his willpower, and it has become a major obstacle for Biden and Democrats going toward the 2022 midterm elections.

In the survey, Americans were asked to choose between two statements: that the President could get a lot more done if he really tried, or that the President is constrained by factors like the composition of Congress and the Courts. Americans were almost evenly split on the options, with 45 percent saying that the President is limited, and 47 percent saying that he could do more if he tried.

“Americans want someone to fix things. The President is someone, so they want him to fix things,” said Dan Cassino, a Professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University and the Director of the Poll. “The problem is that there just isn’t a lot that any President can actually do about most of these issues.”

Seventy percent of Americans who approve of Biden say that he’s limited in what he can do, but two-thirds (67 percent) of those who disapprove say that he could do more if he really tried. This relationship between beliefs about Presidential power and approval of Biden isn’t just Democrats thinking that he’s constrained, and Republicans thinking that he’s not: even within the parties, thinking that the President could do more makes people less likely to approve of Biden.

Only about a quarter of Republicans (28 percent) say that the President’s power is limited by structural factors. But those Republicans are much more likely to approve of the job Biden is doing as President (26 percent versus 6 percent).

Similarly, two-thirds of Democrats (65 percent) say that the President is limited by structural factors, with only 28 percent saying that he could do more if he just tried. But those Democrats who say that he could do more are much less likely to approve of Biden than those who think that he’s constrained (55 percent versus 85 percent).

“To get his approval ratings up, Biden needs to convince both sides that he simply can’t get very much done,” said Cassino. “But trying to tell people that he can’t actually do anything isn’t much of a campaign message.”

The survey also asked about Presidential control over specific issues, like inflation, healthcare costs, and a lack of agreement between Republicans and Democrats. A majority of Americans say that the President has “some” or “a lot” of control over the major issues facing the country. For instance, 62 percent of Americans say that the President has “some” or “a lot” of control over inflation, a figure that includes 50 percent of Democrats and 77 percent of Republicans. Similarly, 56 percent of Americans – but more than 76 percent of Republicans – say that the President has at least some control over oil prices. 64 percent of Americans say that the President has at least some control over healthcare costs.

“Figures like these have scholars of the Presidency pulling their hair out,” said Cassino. “Inflation right now is a global problem: there’s nothing the President of the US can do about it, but Americans are expecting him to do something.”

Americans are less likely to attribute power to the President when it comes to other issues. Fewer Americans – just 46 percent – say that the President has at least “some” control over crime rates. Just ten percent of Democrats say that he has “a lot” of control, but that figure is 31 percent among Republicans. One of the major reasons Biden has been unable to pursue much of his agenda is because of a lack of agreement between Republicans and Democrats in Congress. Half of Americans (49 percent) say that the President has at least some control over this, and twenty percent say that he has “a lot” of control.

Beliefs about Presidential control over specific issues is a major driver of Biden’s approval ratings, but not all issues drive approval equally. For instance, there’s not much difference in Biden’s approval between those who think that the President has a lot of control over healthcare costs (26 percent approval) and those who think he has no control (34 percent). But there’s a huge gap on other issues. Among those who say that the President has “no control” over inflation, Biden has 57 percent approval; but among those who say that he has “a lot” of control, only 20 percent approve. There’s a similar gap between those who think the President has “a lot” of control over oil prices (17 percent approval), and those who say that he has “no control” (55 percent approval).

“It’s not clear what people think Biden, or any President, could actually do about these issues,” said Cassino. “But it’s clear that they want him to do something, and they’re going to punish Democrats if he doesn’t.”

Nor are these figures just differences between Republicans and Democrats. For instance, 25 percent of Republicans who say that the President has little or no control over inflation approve of Biden, compared to just seven percent of those who say that he has at least some control. Biden has 79 percent approval among Democrats who say that he has no or little control over inflation – but just 70 approval among those Democrats who say that he has more control.

“Presidents want to portray themselves as being in command, that the buck stops on their desk,” said Cassino. “But right now, the President has a lot of accountability and very little power.”

Methodology

The survey was conducted between April 24 and April 29, 2022, using a certified list of adult US residents nationwide. Respondents were randomly chosen from the list and contacted via either live-caller telephone interviews or text-to-web surveys sent to cellular phones, resulting in an overall sample of 1,021 respondents. 174 of the surveys were carried out via the TTW platform, 196 of the interviews were carried out via landline telephones, and the remainder (697) was done on cellular phones. Surveys were conducted only in English.

The data were weighted to be representative of the population of adult US residents, as of the 2020 US Census. The weights used, like all weights, balance the demographic characteristics of the sample to match known population parameters. The weighted results used here are balanced to match parameters for sex, age, education, and race/ethnicity.

SPSSINC RAKE, an SPSS extension module that simultaneously balances the distributions of all variables using the GENLOG procedure, was used to produce final weights. Weights were trimmed to prevent individual interviews from having too much influence on the final results. The use of these weights in statistical analysis helps to ensure that the demographic characteristics of the sample approximate the demographic characteristics of the target population. The size of these weights is used to construct the measure of design effects, which indicates the extent to which the reported results are being driven by the weights applied to the data, rather than found in the data itself. Simply put, these design effects tell us how many additional respondents would have been needed to get the weighted number of respondents across weighted categories: larger design effects indicate greater levels of under-representation in the data. In this case, the calculated design effects are approximately 1.25.

All surveys are subject to sampling error, which is the expected probable difference between interviewing everyone in a population versus a scientific sampling drawn from that population. Sampling error should be adjusted to recognize the effect of weighting the data to better match the population. In this poll, the simple sampling error for 1,021 registered voters is +/-3.1 percentage points, at a 95 percent confidence interval. Including the design effects, the margin of error would be +/-3.9 percentage points, though the figure not including them is much more commonly reported.

This error calculation does not take into account other sources of variation inherent in public opinion studies, such as non-response, question-wording, differences in translated forms, or context effects. While such errors are known to exist, they are often unquantifiable within a particular survey, and all efforts, such as randomization and extensive pre-testing of items, have been used to minimize them.

Weighted Telephone Sample Characteristics

1,021 US Residents

Figures are weighted to overall voter characteristics from previous gubernatorial elections. Respondents who refused to answer a demographic item are not included.

Man                                

43%                 N = 461

Woman                            

54%                 N = 578

Some Other Way          

2%                  N = 17

18-30                          

26%                N = 281

31-44                          

31%               

N = 335

45-64                          

26%                 N = 273

65+                              

16%                 N = 169

Democrat (with leaners)             

45%                 N = 388

Independent                                 

16%                 N = 139

Republican (with leaners)          

38%                 N = 322

White                                           

50%                N = 538

Black                                              

14%                N = 144

Hispanic/Latino/a                                      1

8%                N = 197

Asian                                       

7%                  N = 78

Other/Multi-racial                                    

8%                  N = 84

No college degree                      

53%                N = 567

College degree or more             

45%                N = 483

Question Wording and Order

N1. Do you approve or disapprove of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as president?

1. Approve
2. Disapprove
3. Not Sure/Don’t Know [Vol]
4. Refused [Vol]

N2. Regardless of whether you approve of the President or not, how much control do you think that any US President has over the following problems facing the US?

1. No control
2. Only a little control
3. Some control
4. A lot of control
5. Don’t Know [Vol]
6. Refused [Vol]

[Shuffled Order]

N2A. Inflation

N2B. Oil Prices

N2C. Healthcare costs

N2D. Crime rates

N2E. Lack of agreement between Republicans and Democrats

N3. Some people say that structural factors, like the composition of Congress and the Courts, make it hard for any modern President to do very much. Other people say that if a President really tried, he could get a lot more done. What do you think? Is the President limited in what he can do, or could he do more if he really tried? [order of options in question is shuffled]

1. President is limited
2. President could do more
3. Don’t Know
4. Refused

Release Tables