-
President Joe Biden just hit a low in one approval rating tracker.
-
According to FiveThirtyEight, Biden’s approval rating on Monday is the lowest of his presidency.
-
Biden’s previous dips came amid a spike in gas prices and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.
President Joe Biden’s approval rating remains seriously underwater, just under five months before Americans will make their judgment on his re-election bid.
On Monday, Biden achieved the unpleasant distinction of posting his lowest rating ever in FiveThirtyEight’s weighted tracker of his approval rating with an approval rating of 37.4%.
His latest figure comes at a time when polls show worrying signs of his support among non-white voters. Some progressives have also taken aim at the White House for its response to Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack.
Biden’s approval rating dropped after the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and never recovered. Its previous low came in July 2022, around the time gas topped $5 a gallon.
By comparison, former President Donald Trump’s popularity has risen slightly since he left office in the wake of the Capitol riot. According to FiveThirtyEight’s weighted average, Trump has an approval rating of 41.6%. Trump faces potentially dangerous times as he becomes the first former president ever convicted of a crime.
Neither man is very popular, a fact that could signal the era of hyper-party politics. In 2016, Gallup found that Trump and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton were the least popular presidential candidates since they began measuring popularity in 1956.
Biden’s popularity puts him at significant risk of losing in November. According to Gallup, Biden left his most recent term in office (which ended April 18) with the lowest approval rating in that period in decades.
Four other modern presidents had average approval ratings of less than 50% at the same time. Only one, President Barack Obama, was re-elected in November. Trump, whose Gallup average at this point in 2020 was 46.8% (higher than Biden’s 38.7%), lost to Biden in November.
The president hopes this month can change the narrative. Biden is expected to intensify his campaign. He also pushed for a debate in June, the first confrontation between two major presidential candidates. The pair will debate on June 27.
Read the original article on Business Insider
