President Joe Biden’s job approval rating remained at 42 percent in a new NBC News poll.
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Americans continue to express their dissatisfaction, with three-quarters of registered voters polled by NBC News saying the county is headed in the wrong direction and 58 percent saying the best years are behind them.
But the economy is not the main concern of voters, according to the survey. “Threats to democracy” have overtaken “cost of living” and “jobs and the economy” as the most important issue facing the country.
The poll put President Joe Biden’s approval rating at 42%, which is where it stood in May.
Biden signed the climate change and health care bill into law last week, capping a string of legislative victories for Democrats as midterm elections approach in the fall. Economic news has boosted Biden, from July’s jobs report showing 528,000 jobs were added that month to falling gas pump prices in recent weeks.
The NBC News poll said 40 percent of voters approve of how Biden is handling the economy, up 7 points since May.
“Politically, for Joe Biden and the Democrats, the news is not all bad,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the poll with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies . “Heading into Labor Day, the political dynamic could be worse [for Democrats]but they also need to improve a lot and quickly,” he said.
Of those polled, 47% of voters want Republicans to win control of Congress in the November midterms, while 45% want Democrats to win control.
NBC News quoted McInturff as saying the president’s job rating was a challenge heading into the election. “America is singing the blues, and that’s bad news for the blue team in November,” he said.
In the poll, 21% of voters said “threats to democracy” were the most important issue, while 16% cited the “cost of living” and 14% cited “jobs and the economy”. In a May NBC poll, 22% of voters cited the cost of living as the most important issue, followed by jobs and the economy (18%), and voting rights and election integrity (12%).
A separate question in the August poll found that 58 percent of voters disapprove of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning the abortion precedent Roe v. Wade, while 38 percent approve.
It also found that 57 percent of registered voters say investigations into alleged wrongdoing by former President Donald Trump should continue because he needs to be held accountable, while 40 percent say they should stop because they are politically motivated and they have division.
Of those who want the investigations to continue, 92% are Democratic voters, 61% are independent and 21% are Republican voters.
After the House committee investigating the attack held televised hearings, 50 percent of voters say Trump is solely or primarily responsible for the Jan. 6 uprising at the U.S. Capitol, a 5-point increase from NBC’s May poll. And 49% say Trump is only somewhat or not at all responsible for Jan. 6, down 6 points from May.
Voters were polled between Aug. 12 and 16, during and after a number of Trump headline events, NBC News noted: The FBI searched Trump’s Florida home, lawyer and supporter Rudy Giuliani revealed he is a “target” in an investigation into alleged election interference in Georgia. , and former Trump Organization CFO Allen Weisselberg pleaded guilty to tax fraud.
Write to Janet H. Cho at janet.cho@dowjones.com