He’s still dropping like a rock, folks.
As of Wednesday morning, Joe Biden’s RCP average job approval rating had dropped BELOW 50% for the first time in his 7-month old presidency. 49.4% approve of the job he’s doing. He was averaging near 55% before a summer season marred by inflation, gas price spikes, and Delta variant fear porn soured the national mood.
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The RCP average does NOT appear to reflect a Monday post-Afghanistan meltdown Reuters/Ipsos poll that pegged Biden’s approval rating at just 46%.
Biden’s biggest problem, by the way, may be independents who are turning against him in recent polling.
The historical comparison: Barack Obama’s job approval number stood at about 53% at this calendar point in 2009; Obama went on to lose control of Congress the next year. George W. Bush’s approval rating was close to 56% in mid-August 2001, whereas Trump (who was upside down for most of his presidency in the RCP average) was below 40%.
The bottom line: Joe and the Democrats have plenty of time between now and next year’s midterms for the environment to change, but the storm clouds gathering on the horizon are looking darker and more foreboding by the second. An increasingly unpopular president is also unlikely to get much accomplished legislatively, and that’s a real problem for Biden in light of the fact that his infrastructure package’s fate still hangs in the balance.
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