Nine in 10 U.S. voters say the deadly drug fentanyl penetrating the United States is a serious problem, but only 26% rate President Joe Biden's handling of such problem as being as good or excellent; 48% rate him as doing a poor job in dealing with this problem.
Republicans and older voters tend to be most critical of Biden's fentanyl efforts.
These are some of the findings of the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey.
While 48% of Democrat voters rate Biden's handling of the fentanyl problem as good or excellent, that opinion is shared by only 12% of Republicans and 17% of unaffiliated voters.
Sixty-nine percent of Republicans and 54% of unaffiliated voters rate Biden as doing a poor job of handling the fentanyl problem, as do 24% of Democrats.
Republicans (78%) are more likely than Democrats (64%) or unaffiliated voters (71%) to believe fentanyl is a very serious problem in America.
Seventy-five percent of white people and 64% of black voters and other minorities, consider fentanyl to be a very serious problem. Twenty-seven percent (27%) of whites, 30% of black voters, and 22% of other minorities rate Biden as doing a good or excellent job in handling the fentanyl problem.
There is very little "gender gap" on the fentanyl problem, although men (28%) in the survey are slightly more likely than women voters (25%) to rate Biden's handling of the problem as good or excellent.
Older voters are more likely than those under 40 to consider fentanyl a very serious problem in America. A majority of older voters, but only 33% of those under 40, give Biden a poor rating for his handling of the fentanyl problem.
Breaking down the electorate by income categories, those earning between $50,000 and $100,000 a year are most likely to rate Biden poor for his handling of the fentanyl problem, according to Rasmussen.
Government employees (36%) are more likely than private sector workers (25%) to give Biden a good or excellent rating for his handling of the fentanyl problem.
The survey of 900 U.S. likely voters was conducted Feb. 5-7 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is plus/minus 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC.
During his State of the Union speech last week, Biden said: "We now have a record number of personnel working to secure the border, arresting 8,000 human smugglers, and seizing over 23,000 pounds of fentanyl in just the last several months."
Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opioid that is similar to morphine but is 50 to 100 times more potent. Some drug dealers are mixing fentanyl with other drugs, such as heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and MDMA. Fentanyl can be addictive and poisonous.
Mexico and China are the primary source countries for fentanyl and fentanyl-related substances trafficked directly into the U.S.
Overall, drug overdose deaths rose from 2019 to 2021 with more than 106,000 drug overdose deaths reported in 2021. Deaths involving synthetic opioids other than methadone (primarily fentanyl) continued to rise with 70,601 overdose deaths reported in 2021, according to National Institutes of Health statistics.