President Biden’s first state of the Union address is coming up on Tuesday, March 1. He is facing bad national ratings and a new war – the Russian aggression to Ukraine, and growing gas prices will likely impact the public opinion depending on what Biden does and reacts.
WCU students we talked to and surveyed don’t have high opinions on President Biden’s work.
The State of the Union is a constitutionally required (article II, section III, clause I) address made by the president to the entire governing body. This includes all of Congress, the Supreme Court, the president’s cabinet, and the joint chiefs of staff.
National polling shows that Biden’s approval rating continues to drop as his term continues. According to data collected by FiveThirtyEight his approval rating has dropped since the beginning of his term from 53% to 42.3%. FiveThirtyEight also shows that of the last 13 presidents his approval rating at this point into the term is only higher than Donald Trump’s.
Western Carolina University student leaders in political organizations or politically engaged students reflected some of that opinion on his performance so far.
For this story, the WCJ did interviews with three student leaders of political groups at WCU, as well as a survey of 12 students’ opinions.
This survey was equally distributed between different parties. There were four Republicans, four Independents, three Democrats, and one Libertarian.
In the interviews, as well as the survey, the students were asked to rate the president from 1 to 7, with one being the worst and seven being the best. They were also asked to explain why he was given this rating.
Among the interviews not one answered over four, which is a neutral rating. In the survey, the highest rating given was 5/7, three participants gave this answer. The explanations given for these ratings differed from person to person, but there were many connecting themes like vaccine mandates, border crisis, and Afghanistan.
Robert Moore, president of the College Republicans, gave a 1/7, the lowest rating. Moore did not hesitate to give his reasoning.
“Tyrannical forcing of vaccine mandates around the country and the crisis at the southern border I think that very much justifies the rating that I am giving him. It is just a disaster in my opinion,” he said.
This negativity was reflected in the survey. Of the respondents, four gave the Biden administration between one and three for reasons like, a “lack of solid communication from the administration,” “Afghanistan, border issues, economy” and “broken promises.”
Holly Miller, president of the Student Democracy Coalition, and Kaylee Cook, vice president of the College Democrats at WCU, were more positive in their responses grading him at 4.
Miller thought he had addressed many important things so far.
“The pandemic and vaccinations are the most important issue that the country is facing right now, so I would say the vaccine mandates and trying to get the vaccine out there,” she said.
Cook agreed COVID was one of the most important things he had addressed and added that the actions he had taken towards climate change were important to her as well.
Eight survey participants rated the presidency with a neutral rating or above. People left comments like, “I think Biden is doing a great job considering he came into office in the middle of a global pandemic,” “he has tried to address climate change,” “overturning the ban on transgender troops” and “the importance of vaccinations.”
Seven of the fifteen total people who participated in giving their opinion had a neutral rating.
WCU students have been politically active historically, but involvement reached its highest during the 2020 election.
Voting rates were at 72% during 2020, other institutions averaged around 60%.
WCU students’ opinions on the topic will continue to be a matter of significance as the presidency continues. It will be interesting to see how they change over time.
