Biden approval drops in solidly Democratic Massachusetts

No state appears safe for President Biden.

A new poll of voters in deep-blue Massachusetts shows the commander-in-chief is about as popular in the Bay State as the Yankees and Manhattan clam chowder — with Biden’s approval rating among Democrats dropping by 13 percentage points in three months.

The Suffolk University/Boston Globe poll released Tuesday shows 41% of registered voters in Massachusetts approve of the job Biden is doing, while 48% disapprove.

Among Democrats, Biden’s approval percentage has slumped from 75% in April to 62% now, while more than one in four (26%) disapprove of his job performance.

In April’s edition of the Suffolk/Globe poll, Massachusetts voters were split on Biden 46% to 46%. ​

Massachusetts has only voted for Republican presidential candidates five times in the past century and Biden received 65% of the vote there in 2020.

The survey indicates voters’ concerns about the economy are dragging down the president’s numbers as two-thirds of Massachusetts voters say they believe the US is either in economic stagnation or has entered a recession — although no official determination has been made about the latter question.

In April, 35% of commonwealth voters believed the US was in a recession. Now, almost 46% of voters say the same.

“A 10-point [increase] in a three-month period, that’s something that policymakers and academics and regular people certainly need to take a look at,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. “The economy is really weighing on residents in the Bay State, so the fallout really happens with the president.”

Eighteen months after Biden entered the White House, 54% of Massachusetts voters say events in the US have gone worse than they expected, while just 10% say they have gone better than expected and 33% say they’ve gone about how they expected. 

The poll was released on the same day that a survey of New Hampshire Democrats showed Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg narrowly ahead of Biden in the first-in-the-nation primary state.

Buttigieg, 40, had the support of 17% of likely Democratic primary voters in the University of New Hampshire poll, while the incumbent could only manage 16%. California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) each pulled in 10% support in the poll.

The same survey found that 74% of Granite State Democrats said they don’t want Biden to run again.