Biden’s Still Unpopular But Out of the Danger Zone
The president’s approval rating is too low to help Democrats in the midterms but high enough to avoid a 2024 primary challenge.
Not very popular.
Photographer: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
With less than a month until Election Day, and more than one million voters having already cast their ballots, it’s a good time to check in on President Joe Biden’s popularity. The good news for Biden is that he is up about 5 percentage points from his July low point. The bad news for him — and for Democrats in general — is that he has plateaued at a still-low approval level of around 42.5% since the end of August.
That’s the third-worst approval level among polling-era presidents at this point in their term. He’s ahead of Harry Truman, doing a bit better than Donald Trump and Ronald Reagan, a bit behind Bill Clinton and Barack Obama and further behind where Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford were at this stage. All the other presidents had a 50% or better rating at this stage.