The "viral Independence Day" has not been so much. At least not as much as President Joe Biden boasted two months ago, predicting that by this celebration date the United States would be free of contagion and that 70% of the population would have been vaccinated. Neither one thing nor the other: neither has the risk of contracting the disease disappeared, nor have Americans yet reached the percentage where herd immunity has been achieved, or herd immunity if we allow ourselves to be carried away by the terminology of denialism, giving the masses a proven manipulable and docile character in this health crisis. Despite all this, the whole country has erupted in a kind of social euphoria celebrating that "America is coming together again", the slogan chosen for the White House festivities to cover up the president's miscalculation. Sleepy Joe' is already beginning to realise that not everything is as easy as it seems, even as the most powerful man in the world. He has relied to mitigate this failure on the magic figure of money announced for reconstruction, the 1.9 trillion dollars that turned the first weeks of the mandate into a sort of entelechy with the chequebook in hand. And in the impressive rebound in employment in June, 850,000 jobs created thanks to those stimuli and the recovery in economic activity.
All this allows Biden to maintain a very acceptable popularity rating in the first summer of his term. The most prestigious media polls give him an approval rating for his job as president of between 50 and 56%. Gallup puts the pass mark at 14 points away from the fail mark. Battleground Poll and the Georgetown Institute of Politics narrow the gap to seven, but most telling may be the distance Fox News gives him in his favour: 13 points that make clear the veteran politician's image pull in his first 4th of July in the Oval Office.
Respondents do not give him as high a score when it comes to assessing the way Biden is dealing with the immigration issue. Few are convinced by Vice President Harris's trip to Mexico as part of the strategy to curb the influx of illegals. Fifty-one per cent of those polled by ABC News and The Washington Post disapprove of his policies towards immigrants, which are still undefined, even though they have maintained the pressure on the border and the refoulements applied by Trump. The worst thing is not that: only 33% approve of them, with 16% undecided on a key issue for Americans. The figures are repeated in CNN, CNBC and Marist Poll surveys.
In general, domestic policy issues are Biden's refuge as far as public opinion is concerned. He enjoys very good support ratings on issues such as environmental policy (54 according to CNN), pandemic control (66), racial injustice (54) and the economy (51). But his approval rating drops sharply when his citizens are asked about his role as commander-in-chief or in foreign affairs. Not even the European tour has improved it.
As for one of his best-remembered promises in that speech on the Capitol steps on 20 January, to unite a country divided in two by the polarisation for and against Trump, the latest Quinnipac University poll puts the impression that Biden is doing more to unite the country than to divide it (51-41) up ten points. The president has enough credit in this regard, although he has squandered it on another domestic issue that worries Europeans more than Americans: gun ownership. Fifty-one percent disapprove of his handling of this issue rooted in American traditions and culture (CNN).
