What Does Biden’s Approval Rate Tell Us?

Jonathan Bernstein: “After four-plus months of Joe Biden’s presidency, we can finally say something about his polling numbers with a fair degree of confidence: His initially high disapproval numbers, second only to Donald Trump during the polling era, were likely an artifact of partisanship and had little to do with Biden himself.”

“We can say that because Biden’s huge lead in disapproval (over, again, everyone but Trump) is disappearing. At the 134-day mark, Biden is no longer second-worst. He’s now passed Bill Clinton and Gerald Ford, both of whom he has also passed in approval ratings.”

“What’s more, Biden has gained ground on almost all of his 12 predecessors. He began his presidency with a whopping 36% disapproval rating, and now has reached 40.1%. Rounding off, Trump gained 12 percentage points of disapproval through 134 days. Barack Obama gained 20 percentage points. George W. Bush gained 19, Clinton 32, George H.W. Bush seven, Ronald Reagan eight, Jimmy Carter 11, Ford 40, Richard Nixon nine, Lyndon Johnson 10 and John Kennedy five. If we go all the way back to Dwight Eisenhower, we finally get someone who had the same 4.1 percentage-point gain in disapproval.”