President Joe Biden’s dropping poll numbers are worse than they seem. A deep dive into the data shows two overlooked problems that most news stories haven’t caught: an intensity problem and a national mood problem. An intensity problem happens when a politician’s “hard” negative ratings rise much higher than his or her “hard” positive ratings. Voters who hold strongly negative views are less likely to shift to the positive side than are voters who hold only somewhat negative views — and that spells trouble in the next election.
Put another way, Biden’s supporters tend to be only so-so in their esteem, while opponents are more passionate in their enmity.
In the recent Quinnipiac University poll , for example, Biden’s overall job approval rating is 40%, with 53% disapproving. That’s not good. But when you look at internal numbers that didn’t make it into the headlines, it gets worse: The number of voters ............
