Biden’s Approval Rating Sinks to New Low

President Joe Biden’s job approval rating has reached a new low, according to Morning Consult/Politico tracking, slipping below 40% for the first time since he entered office. 

Biden’s weakest job approval rating

• The latest survey found that 58% of voters disapprove of Biden’s job performance and 39% approve. It marks the 46th president’s lowest approval rating and highest disapproval rating in 62 weekly surveys conducted since he took office in January 2021.
• For comparison, Biden’s latest numbers are worse than Donald Trump’s were at this time four years ago, when 45% approved and 52% disapproved of the former president. Biden’s popularity, or lack thereof, mirrors Trump’s standing in June 2020, when the nation was grappling with the twin crises of the pandemic and the response to the murder of George Floyd.
• Republicans are far more strident in their disdain for Biden than Democrats are in their support: 80% of GOP voters “strongly disapprove” of Biden’s job handling, compared with 37% of Democrats who “strongly approve” of it.

Unpopular presidents cost their parties in midterms

Biden’s diminishing standing should be alarming to Democrats working to hold control of Congress in the midterm elections this fall. While Biden’s decline has not yet dragged down approval for most Democratic incumbents on the Senate side of the aisle, studies have shown an increasing association between a party’s House performance and their president’s job approval rating.

When it comes to this president, specifically, surveys at this point have found that an aversion to Biden doesn’t necessarily mean a vote against the Democratic Party come November, though that likely provides little solace given the bleak nature of the political environment.

Biden’s impact on the midterm ballot

• By a 14-point margin, voters who approve of Biden are more likely to say they plan to vote for the Democratic congressional candidate this fall than voters who disapprove are to say they’ll back the Republican candidate. 
• Morning Consult’s generic ballot test in June 2018, at a similar place in the midterm cycle, found no such discrepancy: Voters who disapproved of Trump were just as likely to say they’d vote for the Democratic candidate as voters who approved of him were to back a Republican.
• The GOP has made gains on the generic ballot since Morning Consult began tracking the question this cycle, with congressional Republicans now tied with Democrats, compared with a deficit of 4 percentage points in September.

The latest Morning Consult/Politico survey was conducted June 4-5, 2022, among a representative sample of 2,006 registered U.S. voters, with an unweighted margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.