New polling data suggests a struggle for Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections

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• Judy Woodruff:

  A new "PBS NewsHour"/NPR/Marist poll is out today, and it has good news for Republicans, but indicates a rocky road ahead for President Biden and Democrats, as the midterm election season swings into gear.

  To help us break it all down, I'm joined by our political correspondent, Lisa Desjardins.

  Lisa, so, hello.

  First of all, what is in here about how President Biden is doing?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  First of all, I like to tell people right off the top there is a margin of error here. It's about 3 or 4 percentage points, depending on the category.

  Let's look at the president's approval rating over time, where we are over the past few months. You see. There it was. It got lower last — in March. It has increased a little bit, 41 percent. But given that margin of error I just talked about, it's about static. It hasn't really changed that much.

  Now, it is technically higher than the approval rating at the lowest point for President Trump. But that's not a comparison that Democrats want, of course. Some good news for Democrats maybe that, at this point in his term of office, President Reagan also had a low approval rating, about 46 percent. So this doesn't indicate the fate of a president.

  However, it is a problem for Democrats, of course, on the ballot in November. And I want to drill down into something specific that may alarm them. Let's look at their base a little bit.

  When you asked if people that we have surveyed if they strongly approve of President Biden, let's look at what people said. Who strongly approves? Only 43 percent of Democrats strongly approve of the president. That's the base that you want to get out. Three percent of Republicans, no surprise, not a lot of strong approval there.

  But look at independents. Only 9 percent of independents strongly approve of President Biden. That is a big enthusiasm problem for Democrats that they have to really think about.

• Judy Woodruff:

  So, you're talking about Democrats broadly. And you did look more closely at that.

  What does this suggest that Democrats need to think about for November?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  There are some very significant issues in which Democrats see a larger gap forming between them and Democrat — and Republicans in public opinion.

  Let's take a look at this by the issues then. So the number one issue right now seems to be the economy, of course. So, when you look at the economy there, right there on the first on the left, the blue line indicates people who believe Democrats would do better with the economy. The red line, that much larger line, Republicans, people who believe Republicans would do better with the economy.

  But we also heard from — we also saw in this survey that most Americans believe — more Americans, rather, believe that Republicans would do better on crime. Look at that immigration figure. By just a narrow amount, more Americans now believe that Republicans would do a better job handling immigration than Democrats.

  That is an issue that Democrats in the past have done well with. Where do Democrats do well? Look at that. On the coronavirus, more Americans believe Democrats would do better on that than on — than Republicans do.

  Those are really major issues right now. And Democrats are falling behind. And the Democrats still do well with things like climate change. They blow Republicans out of the water on that. But talking to our pollster Lee Miringoff on this, he said it's a real problem, because the front-of-mind issues is where Democrats are losing ground.

  Lee Miringoff, Director, Marist Institute for Public Opinion: Right now, the issues of greatest salience for the voters are the issues that tend to be favoring the Republicans.

  And that is sort of also driving these general numbers about why the Republicans are in decent shape. One big caveat in all that is that we really don't know right now what's going to be on people's minds in October and November. What we clearly have learned in the last year or so is that the issues come and go in very fast fashion right now.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  One issue he mentioned, abortion and the Supreme Court decision that we expect soon.

• Judy Woodruff:

  And, Lisa, there's another issue that Republicans have spent a fair amount of time emphasizing this year. It's education. And yet Democrats seem to do well with that.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  That's right.

  And there's something really interesting when you look down at sort of how — what people feel on education. Let's take a look at the data that we found. You ask all voters who does a better job on education, overall, more Americans believe Democrats, that blue line, 40 percent, would do better on education.

  But if you ask parents who have children under the age of 18, people who are in schools, in PTAs, they believe Republicans by a narrow amount would do a better job. And that's why you're seeing this problem at school boards and meetings across the country. Those parents are starting to trust Republicans more than Democrats, though it's close.

  And that is a real issue.

• Judy Woodruff:

  No doubt or connection to COVID there.

  And, Lisa, you all — also looked at some particular voter groups, including Latinos. What did you find?

• Lisa Desjardins:

  You know, we have seen in many cycles that this is a voting group that really does — has not really chosen Republicans, Democrats. And, of course, Latinos aren't monolithic, many different groups in many different parts of the country.

  But I want to look at where Latinos have been in the past few years in terms of big surveys. This is where the percent of Latinos who told exit holder's in 2020 that they voted for President Biden, 65 percent. That's a number of Democrats like. They would love it to be even higher.

  But, in our survey, this is the percent that said they would support a Democrat in November, 39 percent, 52 percent voting Republican. And that is a huge issue in some states with some close elections like Texas and large Latino populations. It is a population that, when I talk to Latino leaders on the Hill and otherwise, they feel Democrats have not done enough to reach out.

  And perhaps that's what we're seeing in this poll.

• Judy Woodruff:

  It would be really interesting to understand what issues matter most to Latino voters.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  Yes. We will have more polls ahead.

• Judy Woodruff:

  Lisa Desjardins thank you.

• Lisa Desjardins:

  You're welcome.