According to the latest Zogby Poll® one-fifth of likely voters regret voting for President Biden. On the surface it doesn't seem like much, especially if you look at the three quarters of likely voters who did not regret their vote; 4% were not sure how they felt.
Why does this matter? If you take into consideration the size of the electorate, and how the last two Presidential elections (2016 and 2020) were decided by tens of thousands of votes in a handful of battleground states, this could really hurt President Biden's chances in 2024. But even though Joe Biden has suffered humiliating defeats in recent weeks, he still has time to recover. One still gets the sense his ship is sinking fast, and he might not have any lifeboats aboard to save him. Biden's low approval numbers, the botched withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan, and inflation eating away the purchasing power of Americans are the president's biggest problems now.
As for the poll, when we drill down and look at the demographics of the surveyed voters, some very important groups, who normally lean left and Democrat, were even more regretful about voting for the president in 2020. For example, younger voters aged 18-29 (27% yes/67% no/6% not sure) and middle aged voters aged 30-49 (30% yes/67% no/4% not sure) were much more likely to regret voting for Biden than older voters aged 50-64 (10% yes/87% no/3% not sure) and 65+ (6% yes/91% no/3% not sure). Regarding politics, nearly three in ten Republicans (29% yes/65% no/7% not sure) regretted voting for Biden, while one-fifth of Democrats (21% yes/77% no/3% not sure) also regretted voting for Joe Biden. Independents (14% yes/81% no/6% not sure) were the least likely to regret voting for Biden in 2020.
Men (27% yes/70% no/3% not sure) were twice as likely to regret voting for Joe Biden than women (13% yes/82% no/5% not sure). Ethnicity also factored in how much voters expressed regret about voting for Biden: Hispanics (33% yes/63% no/4% not sure) and African Americans (25% yes/70% no/5% not sure) were more likely than white voters (16% yes/80% no/4% not sure) to regret voting for Biden.
Where voters lived was also of significance when it came to whether voters' regretted voting for President Biden. Urban voters (28% yes/67% no/4% not sure) were twice as likely to regret voting for Biden than suburban (14% yes/83% no/4%not sure) and rural voters (12% yes/86% no/3%not sure).
Some of the consumer subgroups we track also expressed regret voting for Biden, such as, weekly Walmart shoppers (27% yes/69% no/4% not sure), weekly Amazon shoppers (29% yes/68% no/3% not sure) and likely voters who had invested money in cryptocurrency, such as Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Litecoin (44% yes/53% no/3% not sure). One must assume that inflation and the potential of the federal government to reign in cryptocurrencies were driving these sentiments. The opposite held true for consumers who did not shop at Walmart (5% yes/94% no/1% not sure) and Amazon (11% yes/86% no/3% not sure) and voters who had not invested in cryptocurrency (11% yes/86% no/4% not sure).
What's interesting is our poll was taken before the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan. While Biden tries to deal with the aftermath of Hurricane Ida, which blew through Louisiana last week, many Americans are not treating the recent events in Afghanistan lightly. Come next poll, many more voters might be expressing regret if Biden and company do not score a victory soon.
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Zogby Analytics Poll Methodology
US Likely Voters
8/5/21 - 8/13/21
Zogby Analytics conducted an online survey of 2,173 Biden voters in the US.
Using internal and trusted interactive partner resources, thousands of adults were randomly invited to participate in this interactive survey. Each invitation is password coded and secure so that one respondent can only access the survey one time.
Using information based on census data, voter registration figures, CIA fact books and exit polls, we use complex weighting techniques to best represent the demographics of the population being surveyed. Weighted variables may include age, race, gender, region, party, education, and religion. The party breakdown for this survey is as follows: 38% Democrat, 38% Republican and 24% Independent/unaffiliated.
Based on a confidence interval of 95%, the margin of error for 2,173 is +/- 2.1 percentage points. This means that all other things being equal, the identical survey repeated will have results within the margin of error 95 times out of 100.
Subsets of the data have a larger margin of error than the whole data set. As a rule we do not rely on the validity of very small subsets of the data especially sets smaller than 50-75 respondents. At that subset we can make estimations based on the data, but in these cases the data is more qualitative than quantitative.
Additional factors can create error, such as question wording and question order.
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About Zogby Analytics:
Zogby Analytics is respected nationally and internationally for its opinion research capabilities. Since 1984, Zogby has empowered clients with powerful information and knowledge critical for making informed strategic decisions.
The firm conducts multi-phased opinion research engagements for banking and financial services institutions, insurance companies, hospitals and medical centers, retailers and developers, religious institutions, cultural organizations, colleges and universities, IT companies and Federal agencies. Zogby's dedication and commitment to excellence and accuracy are reflected in its state-of-the-art opinion research capabilities and objective analysis and consultation.