Americans' trust in President Joe Biden continues to slide as people see more time needed to return to pre-pandemic life, according to a new Axios-Ipsos poll.
Just 13% of responding U.S. adults said they expected to be able to get back to their pre-COVID lives within six months, Axios reported Tuesday. That was down from 36% in June.
People expecting a return to normal life to take more than a year has tripled from 9% to 30% since June.
That's not good news for Biden.
"He's basically losing the expectations game," Cliff Young, president of Ipsos U.S. public affairs, told Axios. "Once the delta variant raised its ugly head, it affected people's lives, and now they're adjusting their expectations, which is not good for him.
"His central pillar ... is his ability to bring to a resolution the pandemic and the COVID issue. He's in a very difficult place."
While it's no surprise Republicans don't trust the president — just 2% say they trust him a "great deal" — Democrats and independents also are losing faith in Biden.
A large chunk of Democrats (81%) currently have at least a fair amount of trust in Biden, but that's down from 88% in June, Axios-Ipsos poll results found.
The percentage of Democrats with a "great deal" of trust in Biden has dropped significantly, from 45% to 33%.
Among independents, those with a "great deal" of trust in Biden has dropped from 17% to 11%.
"In the absence of a villain, Democrats are kind of turning on the president because they don't know who else to blame," Ipsos pollster and senior vice president Chris Jackson told Axios. "A lot of the people who are his supporters still feel very anxious about COVID.
"He's lost a ton of ground with that group that thought they were going to be able to get back to their lives within the next six months."
In June, about 65% of people who thought life would be normal again within six months also said they trusted Biden a great deal or a fair amount. Now, only 44% in that group trusts Biden.
Among people who say life will never go back to normal, trust in Biden fell from 38% to 30%.
The Axios-Ipsos poll also found that there's no consensus concerning what to do when people defy vaccine mandates:
- 14% of respondents say those employees should be fired.
- 29% say nothing should happen.
- 22% say the employees should be placed on unpaid leave.
- 21% say the employees should be made to work remotely.
- 14% say they don't know what should happen.
A majority of Democrats favor firing or taking away the pay of someone non-compliant with a mandate. Half of Republicans say nothing should happen, and just 4% favor firing people, the poll found.
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