US President Joe Biden

A new Wall Street Journal poll finds that US President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats have lost ground to Republicans on several of the most important issues to voters, a troubling sign for the party seeking to extend its controlling majority in Congress for another two years.

According to the new poll, 57 percent of voters are still dissatisfied with Biden's job performance, despite favorable ratings for the president's response to Russia's special military operation in Ukraine and a recent State of the Union speech in which he had the opportunity to directly address millions of US citizens.

Only 42% approved of Biden's performance in office, a figure that was virtually unchanged from the previous Journal poll in mid-November.

Meanwhile, Democratic advantages over Republicans have shrunk in areas such as education reform and the Covid-19 response. A 16-point Democratic lead on which party would best handle the pandemic had shrunk to 11 points, while a 9-point lead on education issues had shrunk to 5 points.

When asked which party was best able to protect middle-class families, Democrats' 5-point advantage - prevalent four months ago - vanished, leaving the parties essentially tied on the issue.

Voters also gave Democrats low marks for handling inflation and the economy, which were cited as the top issues they want the federal government to address by 50 percent of those polled. The Ukraine crisis was ranked second, with 25% of voters saying it was the most important.

A majority of voters, 63 percent, said they disapproved of Biden's handling of rising costs, giving the president the lowest rating on six policy issues polled. Meanwhile, 47 percent of voters said Republicans were better able to deal with inflation than Democrats, while 30 percent preferred Democrats.

It seems that Republicans had a better plan to improve the economy: 45 percent compared to 37 percent for their rival party, despite the fact that the Republican leaders in each chamber, Sen. Mitch McConnell and Rep. Kevin McCarthy, have advanced few specific economic-policy proposals they would pursue if they controlled Congress.

Since the last Journal poll, US citizens have faced a surge in Covid-19 cases from the highly contagious Omicron variant, supply chain bottlenecks that left store shelves empty in January, and increases in gasoline and other consumer prices that have driven inflation to a 40-year high.

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