-

Abbott Ties Alleged Biden Popularity Fall
to Texas Voting Lies as Fox News Expert

Capitol Inside
July 25, 2021

Governor Greg Abbott contended on Sunday that Democratic President Joe Biden's approval ratings are plunging as a consequence of fraudulent and disgraceful claims about a GOP election bill that Texas House Democrats have on hold in a stalled special session in Austin.

Abbott unleashed his most scorching assessment of the president yet - claiming in a Fox News appearance that Biden had disrespected Black voters by comparing the Texas voting measure to restrictions from the state's racist past before the civil rights movement in the 1960s. The governor fired off a more personal shot with a reference to an insulting term that Biden used to describe Abbott's repeal of the state mask mandate in March.

"So this is the same president who called me a Neanderthal, now he’s invoking Jim Crow, too," Abbott said. "And I’ve got to tell you what. That’s diminishing to the people in the United States of America who did have to suffer through Jim Crow. Anybody who says this is a Jim Crow law, they don’t either know Jim Crow laws or they don’t know what’s going on in the state of Texas. Because there is no segregation, there is no attempt to make it harder for people of color.

"It’s easier today than it’s ever been for people of color, for all Texans, to be able to cast a vote," Abbott added. "So these aspersions that are being cast by the president of the United States are completely reprehensible, and it shows the American people that the president of the United States is willing to lie about what’s going on to try get his way. And that’s one reason why you’re seeing President Biden’s polling numbers continue to plummet."

Abbott set himself up for an easy hit with the attempt to link a purported Biden slide in popularity to a deceitful misinformation campaign on the Texas election legislation that appears doomed to die in the current special session before its revival in a second summer gathering that he's vowed to call.

Biden's approval ratings actually have held steady during his first six months in the White House - and while they were low at the outset of his term - they're slightly higher now than Donald Trump's had been at the same point in time in a four-year stint as president. Biden's support among fellow Democrats has been stronger - however - than any of the presidents in the U.S. since World War II.

Abbott's own popularity has been falling since the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic - according to the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas. Based on polls that UT has conducted in a partnership with the Texas Tribune, Abbott's approval marks peaked in April 2020 at 56 percent before a sharp drop to 49 percent two months later amid an uproar among conservatives over initial restrictions that he'd imposed while limiting the ability of local governments to act.

The governor's approval ratings continued to decline until sinking to 43 percent in April when 45 percent disapproved of the job that Abbott was doing. That marked the first time that Abbott had received more thumbs down than up since taking office in 2015. A UT-Texas Tribune survey last month found Abbott's approval and disapproval ratings both at 44 percent.

Abbott doesn't be concerned that the allegations of Biden fabrications on the Texas voting bill could backfire in light of the fact that the legislation has revolved around Trump's big lie with the baseless election challenge that sparked the riot at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Copyright 2003-2021 Capitol Inside