Approval Rating Who Are You Again

President Biden campaigns for California Gov. Gavin Newsom before this calendar month. David McNew/Getty Images hide caption

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President Biden campaigns for California Gov. Gavin Newsom before this month.

David McNew/Getty Images

Many moderate Republicans switched allegiances in last year's election and backed Joe Biden because they could non bide iv more years of Donald Trump.

These voters, who swung from bankroll Trump in 2016 to Biden in 2020, helped brand the difference for Biden in places where the margins were close — often, the suburbs.

So today, nigh eight months into Biden's presidency, how do these voters view him?

In a pair of virtual focus groups NPR observed last calendar week, featuring more than a dozen such voters from central states, a moving-picture show emerged of disappointment with Biden — but no regrets that they helped send Trump packing after one term.

Handling of Afghanistan hurt Biden'southward credibility

Let's outset with the disappointment.

Polls testify Biden's public approval ratings accept taken a hit in contempo months. The voters in these focus groups reflected that slide.

They were worried about the spread of the delta variant and how COVID-xix continues to hurt the economy. They were wary of Democrats' big spending plans on infrastructure and other programs, alarmed by the troubles they see along the Texas border, and were very disturbed past the chaotic U.Due south. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

"What happened in Afghanistan, to me, was the worst thing that'due south happened since Saigon." That reference to the 1975 U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam came from Paul, who lives in fundamental Pennsylvania. (We agreed to place focus group participants by kickoff name only.)

He didn't buy Biden's explanation that Trump set the exit in movement by committing to a withdrawal of troops in a deal with the Taliban last year.

"He didn't have to stick to the timeframe Trump prepare," Paul asserted, "just he kept sticking to it and sticking to information technology, and a lot of people died and a lot of people were left backside. So I think that was squarely on him."

Nonetheless, perhaps dissimilar the pandemic and the economy, Afghanistan may fade from the news over time and, as such, may non affect long-term impressions of Biden as much.

And on the coronavirus, the focus grouping participants — all vaccinated — mostly gave Biden solid marks. Information technology'due south clear he benefits from comparisons to his predecessor on that.

"He's definitely been ameliorate than Trump on handling COVID," said Xaveria from the Atlanta area. But she also said the fact that the delta variant is creating such bug means you nevertheless can't feel really dandy about how the electric current assistants is doing regarding the pandemic.

And so she added that at that place's just an overall unease that's troubling. "Information technology's only kind of, like, non actually trusting what to wait," she said.

As for Biden, she said, "I but put him at, like, the average. He hasn't washed anything corking. And exterior of Transitional islamic state of afghanistan, zero awful." Only she was conspicuously hoping for meliorate.

Not thrilled with Biden, just absolutely not missing Trump

These two focus groups consisted of all Biden voters, but overwhelmingly they nonetheless consider themselves Republicans. They haven't yet left the party, even though they're disillusioned past Trump's ongoing presence and the control he nonetheless holds.

In contrast to the majority of Republicans responding to polls, none of these voters falsely believes the 2020 election was stolen.

None said they regret their 2020 vote. And while they may exist disappointed in Biden, they absolutely rule out voting for Trump if he runs for president again.

Sometime President Donald Trump waves to the crowd at the end of a rally on Saturday in Perry, Ga. Sean Rayford/Getty Images hide caption

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Former President Donald Trump waves to the oversupply at the terminate of a rally on Sat in Perry, Ga.

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Have Christine from the Philadelphia suburbs. Similar others in her focus group, she said she kickoff voted for Trump because he was a businessman and not a politician.

Simply she got far more than she bargained for. She used blunt language to describe the former president: "I felt like nosotros had this monster in office that was bipolar, up and downwards, irrational, crazy thinking." She chosen Trump "childish," said that "crazy things came out of his oral fissure," and that he was "not good for the United States."

And after all of that, Christine confessed: "I didn't desire to vote for Biden. And I'm going to be honest with you lot, I would have voted for anybody but Trump."

Others in the group blamed Trump for inciting racial tensions, citing how he described participants in a white supremacist march in Charlottesville, Va., as "very fine people."

Equally for Trump's oftentimes-stated claim that he would "drain the swamp" in Washington, D.C., focus group member Mike, who lives in Georgia, had this retort: "I think he made the swamp bigger."

"Information technology'south like, where do nosotros go?"

These swing voters readily say that their frustrations with both a Republican Party in Trump'south grasp and with Biden exit them feeling a bit lost politically.

Georgia resident Xaveria asked a simple question: "Information technology's like, where do we go?"

These voter discussions were part of a series of focus groups that have been organized by longtime political strategist Sarah Longwell, the publisher of The Bulwark website who herself is a Republican who'due south worked to defeat Trump.

She hears voters like Xaveria and Christine and says they reject Trump and GOP candidates trying to be "Trumpy" themselves. She says such voters are open to voting for Democrats, but the party also needs to nominate more moderate candidates to make these voters feel welcome there.

These moderate-to-conservative voters "are very articulate that they experience politically unmoored, politically homeless," Longwell said in an interview.

"I actually view these voters as up for grabs in 2022 and 2024," she said. But Longwell says information technology matters who the candidates are and how the parties see themselves.

And Longwell says information technology makes such voters worth watching. Information technology also makes them potentially pivotal. "Right now, people who are willing to change their vote from i party to another really hold the keys to political power," she said.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2021/09/30/1041252418/they-voted-for-trump-and-then-for-biden-heres-what-these-swing-voters-think-now