President Joe Biden’s approval ratings just pulled back from reaching a record low last month – but only slightly.
An Associated Press-NORC poll found in May that less than 40% of the American public had a positive view of President Joe Biden’s performance battling issues both foreign and domestic. The poll gave the president an abysmal 39% approval rating – the lowest of his presidency so far, and dramatically lower than the 63% approval rating given to him by some pollsters last year.
The president’s low approval ratings are a result of not just his unpopularity among Republicans – with fewer than one in 10 GOP respondents to the latest poll expressing positive opinions about his presidency – but also of plummeting approval among Democrats. According to the NORC poll, the president’s approval rating among Democrats has declined steadily throughout his presidency – down from 82% in 2021 to 73% today.
However, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll this week, the president’s approval rating has improved – but only just. The president now sits at around 42% approval, with 52% disapproving of his performance so far.
While President Donald Trump once saw his approval rating dip to a historic low of 33% in December of 2017, President Joe Biden doesn’t benefit from the same “shy” support that the former president did. Whereas voters were less likely to express their support for President Trump to pollsters over fears of being “outed,” resulting in polls that generally didn’t reflect Trump’s actual election results, President Joe Biden has genuine reason to fear his low approval ratings this year.
Biden “Twisted” Over Approval Rating Lower Than Trump’s
President Joe Biden is reportedly “twisted” over his plummeting approval ratings, with figures dropping well below those of former President Donald Trump.
Having promised to “unite” the country after four years of media and Democrat anger directed toward the Trump administration, the Biden White House may now unite the country’s voters in opposition to its policies and performance over the last year.
Speaking to NBC News, an anonymous source close to the Biden administration described the president’s anger at hitting approval ratings below the last administration.
“He’s now lower than Trump, and he’s really twisted about it,” the source said.
However, a White House official denied the claims and said that the president is less angry and more focused on ensuring that the White House makes a “sharper case” for what they have accomplished in his time in office so far. According to the Daily Mail, however, the president is “frustrated” at the way his staff has run his administration so far.
With the midterms quickly approaching, it’s up to President Joe Biden to either make a better case for the policies he has implemented so far or to make improvements that the American people see, feel, and support.
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society.
