ℹ️ Skipped - page is already crawled
| Filter | Status | Condition | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| HTTP status | PASS | download_http_code = 200 | HTTP 200 |
| Age cutoff | PASS | download_stamp > now() - 6 MONTH | 0.2 months ago |
| History drop | PASS | isNull(history_drop_reason) | No drop reason |
| Spam/ban | PASS | fh_dont_index != 1 AND ml_spam_score = 0 | ml_spam_score=0 |
| Canonical | PASS | meta_canonical IS NULL OR = '' OR = src_unparsed | Not set |
| Property | Value | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| URL | https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/whats-behind-bidens-record-low-approval-rating/ | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Last Crawled | 2026-04-16 08:02:10 (6 days ago) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| First Indexed | 2022-07-14 10:00:24 (3 years ago) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| HTTP Status Code | 200 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Content | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Meta Title | What’s Behind Biden’s Record-Low Approval Rating? | FiveThirtyEight | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Meta Description | In games such as golf, you win by scoring lower than any of your opponents. But in the realm of presidential job approval, such an approach is a recipe for poli… | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Meta Canonical | null | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Boilerpipe Text | Drew Angerer/Getty Images
In games such as golf, you win by scoring lower than any of your opponents. But in the realm of presidential job approval, such an approach is a recipe for political upheaval, as President Biden has found over the past few months. Polls continue to show his approval rating in poor shape, and
even Democrats are asking questions
about his political future amid broad dissatisfaction with the current state of the country.
In fact, Biden is dancing with a bleak bit of history: His
approval rating of 39 percent
1
is now the worst of any elected president at this point in his presidency since the end of World War II, according to FiveThirtyEight’s historical presidential approval data. In other words, Biden is arguably in worse shape than any other elected president heading into his first midterm election, including his four most recent predecessors, who, like Biden, were operating in an increasingly polarized political climate.
After entering office, most recent presidents see a decline in their approval ratings, but since Biden’s numbers peaked at 55 percent in March 2021, they have moved in only one direction: down. To some extent, President Barack Obama’s approval rating followed a similar trajectory, but he started off with better numbers than any of the other four most recent presidents and was still well above where Biden is at this point in his presidency.Â
How the latest Jan. 6 hearing testimony could affect midterm elections
By comparison, President Bill Clinton actually mounted a comeback nearly a year into his presidency before his approval fell again in the latter part of 1994. Even President Donald Trump’s low approval rating ticked back up into the low 40s in 2018 after falling to 36 percent in December 2017. And, of course, President George W. Bush topped them all when his approval jumped to a record-high 88 percent in 2001 due to a
rally-around-the-flag moment
shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Why is Biden’s approval so low? For starters, Americans have a really dim view of how things are going in the U.S. For instance, about 75 percent believe the country is on the wrong track according to the
RealClearPolitics average
of recent polls, while only 18 percent say the country is moving in the right direction. To be sure, Americans have long held negative views about the direction the country is moving in — RCP’s average hasn’t been net positive once in the past 13 years — but this is still the highest level of dissatisfaction since 2011.
Many factors
are
driving
this overall
feeling of dissatisfaction
among Americans, but inflation is arguably the biggest reason. Inflation, which is at its
highest point since the early 1980s
, has
consistently ranked as the top issue
Americans are worried about in our polling with Ipsos. In the most recent
FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos
poll, 62 percent of Americans told us that inflation or increasing prices was one of the most important issues facing the country, ranking far ahead of any other topic we asked about.
Will Democrats continue to win in Georgia in 2022? | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
Notably, too, inflation has soured Americans further on Biden’s job performance. For instance, an
early June poll from Ipsos/ABC News
found that only 28 percent of Americans approved of Biden’s handling of inflation; along with his handling of gas prices (27 percent approved), inflation ranked lowest of any of the issues the poll asked about. This stacks up with what’s happened to past presidents, too, as
notable upticks in inflation
have often coincided with sharp declines in presidential job approval. This is particularly true of rising gas prices, as studies have found that
gas price increases
are linked to lower presidential approval — and
gas prices have soared
during this period of high inflation.
Recently, the
connection between economic perceptions and presidential standing
hasn’t been as strong, but political scientists John Sides and Robert Griffin found that
falling consumer sentiment
is once again a useful indicator for understanding presidential approval, as it explains a lot of what we’re seeing with the decline in Biden’s approval.
Interestingly, that reconnection between the economy and presidential approval may be partly down to the decreasing confidence Democrats have in the state of the economy. In fact, even though Democrats are still more confident than Republicans or independents about the economy, we can see that Democrats’ opinions about economic conditions are actually worse now than at any time during Trump’s presidency, using consumer sentiment data from the
University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers
.
The upshot is that this may have weakened Democratic loyalty to Biden. Just 69 percent to 76 percent of Democrats said they approved of Biden in polls from
Ipsos/Reuters
,
YouGov/The Economist
and
Morning Consult
conducted in early July. This sounds high, but it’s much lower than what
these pollsters
found for
Trump’s approval rating among Republicans
during the same period
in 2018
, when it hovered between 84 percent and 88 percent. Of course, economic conditions were more favorable during Trump’s presidency, which may have helped keep Republicans firmly behind Trump, but regardless of party loyalty, the reality is that Biden has lost ground among pretty much every group we have numbers for,
continuing a trend
we first observed in October.
Back then, close to 35 percent of independents approved of Biden, a figure that’s now sunk to around 30 percent. Meanwhile, Biden’s approval among Black Americans may have fallen even more, going from the high 60s to about 60 percent; among Latino Americans, his approval has gone from around 50 percent to the low-to-mid 40s. White Americans are more Republican-leaning, so Biden had less ground to lose with them to begin with, but even still, his numbers among them have slipped from the high 30s to the mid 30s.
One other group that has soured on Biden is younger Americans, especially considering they were
the most Democratic-leaning
age group in 2020 (and in most recent elections). The
Pew Research Center
and the Cooperative Election Study suggest that around 60 percent or more of voters 18 to 29 backed Biden in 2020, yet
recent polls suggest
Biden’s approval among that age group has
fallen into the 30s
, or
even lower
in some surveys.
What will Democrats do about the Supreme Court? | FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
Economic dissatisfaction certainly plays into the disillusionment that young people may have of Biden, but other reports suggest that some of that frustration may also lie in their anger over the Biden administration’s
limited progress on issues
like climate change and canceling student debt. Looking ahead to the midterm elections, the discontent young people feel toward the president could be a real problem, as it might dampen their enthusiasm to vote — that could be bad for Democrats since young voters are already
far less likely to turn out
in midterms than in presidential elections.
As it currently stands,
polls suggest
that
Republicans as a whole are more enthusiastic
than Democrats about the
upcoming election
, although most recent surveys asking that question predate the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing abortion as a constitutional right. This is an issue that could be motivating for Democrats this fall, and in fact, we’ve already seen some movement toward Democrats in our generic ballot average. It remains to be seen, though, whether that’s a short-term blip or a more long-lasting change in the electoral environment, and of course someone who is unenthusiastic can still vote — an unenthusiastic vote counts the same as an enthusiastic one.
I do buy that Dems’ energizing over abortion evens midterms equation: Silver
Nevertheless, the historical relationship between presidential approval and the performance of the president’s party in midterm elections should scare Democrats. Generally speaking, the worse a president’s approval is,
the more seats that party tends to lose
in the House.
2
Thinking back to that first chart, three of the four presidents preceding Biden saw their party
lose at least 40 House seats
in their first midterm election. The exception was Bush, whose party actually gained six seats in the 2002 election, but he had an unusually high approval rating at the time of his first midterm. That’s still notable, though, because it means it has taken that kind of anomaly to see the president’s party suffer fewer losses — or even achieve gains — in House elections.
We can’t know for sure where Biden’s approval will go from here, but many of the factors playing into his approval rating don’t look likely to disappear anytime soon. And that could be a major anchor weighing down Democrats this fall.
Footnotes
As of 5 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday.
This relationship is somewhat true for the Senate, too, but because only about one-third of Senate seats are up each cycle, it’s not a truly national election like it is for the House, where all 435 seats are up. For instance, while
Republicans lost control of the House
in the 2018 election, they actually
gained two seats
in the Senate despite Trump’s approval rating sitting in the low 40s.
Geoffrey Skelley is a senior elections analyst at FiveThirtyEight.
@geoffreyvs | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Markdown | [Skip to main content](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/whats-behind-bidens-record-low-approval-rating/#content)
## [FiveThirtyEight ](https://fivethirtyeight.com/)
[ABC News](https://abcnews.go.com/ "ABC News")
Menu
What’s Behind Biden’s Record-Low Approval Rating?
[Share on Facebook](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/whats-behind-bidens-record-low-approval-rating/?share=facebook) [Share on Twitter](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/whats-behind-bidens-record-low-approval-rating/?share=twitter)
- [Politics](https://fivethirtyeight.com/politics/)
- [Sports](https://fivethirtyeight.com/sports/)
- [Science](https://fivethirtyeight.com/science/)
- [Podcasts](https://fivethirtyeight.com/podcasts/)
- [Video](https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/)
- [Interactives](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/)
- [ABC News](https://abcnews.go.com/)
[This is an archived site and is no longer being updated. New 538 articles can be found at www.abcnews.com/538.](http://abcnews.com/538)
[Presidential Approval](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/presidential-approval/)
# What's Behind Biden's Record-Low Approval Rating?
By [Geoffrey Skelley](https://fivethirtyeight.com/contributors/geoffrey-skelley/)
Jul. 14, 2022, at 6:00 AM
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
In games such as golf, you win by scoring lower than any of your opponents. But in the realm of presidential job approval, such an approach is a recipe for political upheaval, as President Biden has found over the past few months. Polls continue to show his approval rating in poor shape, and [even Democrats are asking questions](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/11/us/politics/biden-approval-polling-2024.html) about his political future amid broad dissatisfaction with the current state of the country.
In fact, Biden is dancing with a bleak bit of history: His [approval rating of 39 percent](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/)1 is now the worst of any elected president at this point in his presidency since the end of World War II, according to FiveThirtyEight’s historical presidential approval data. In other words, Biden is arguably in worse shape than any other elected president heading into his first midterm election, including his four most recent predecessors, who, like Biden, were operating in an increasingly polarized political climate.
After entering office, most recent presidents see a decline in their approval ratings, but since Biden’s numbers peaked at 55 percent in March 2021, they have moved in only one direction: down. To some extent, President Barack Obama’s approval rating followed a similar trajectory, but he started off with better numbers than any of the other four most recent presidents and was still well above where Biden is at this point in his presidency.
***
### How the latest Jan. 6 hearing testimony could affect midterm elections
[All Videos](https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/)[YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/FiveThirtyEight)
***
By comparison, President Bill Clinton actually mounted a comeback nearly a year into his presidency before his approval fell again in the latter part of 1994. Even President Donald Trump’s low approval rating ticked back up into the low 40s in 2018 after falling to 36 percent in December 2017. And, of course, President George W. Bush topped them all when his approval jumped to a record-high 88 percent in 2001 due to a [rally-around-the-flag moment](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rally-around-the-flag-events-are-rare/) shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Why is Biden’s approval so low? For starters, Americans have a really dim view of how things are going in the U.S. For instance, about 75 percent believe the country is on the wrong track according to the [RealClearPolitics average](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/direction_of_country-902.html) of recent polls, while only 18 percent say the country is moving in the right direction. To be sure, Americans have long held negative views about the direction the country is moving in — RCP’s average hasn’t been net positive once in the past 13 years — but this is still the highest level of dissatisfaction since 2011.
[Many factors](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-happens-when-americans-dont-trust-institutions/) are [driving](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-feel-burnt-out-personally-and-politically/) this overall [feeling of dissatisfaction](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-americans-unhappy/) among Americans, but inflation is arguably the biggest reason. Inflation, which is at its [highest point since the early 1980s](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=rocU), has [consistently ranked as the top issue](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/american-issues/) Americans are worried about in our polling with Ipsos. In the most recent [FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/abortion-birth-control-poll/) poll, 62 percent of Americans told us that inflation or increasing prices was one of the most important issues facing the country, ranking far ahead of any other topic we asked about.
RECOMMENDED
[](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/second-gop-debate-smaller-trump/)
Politics
[The Second GOP Debate Could Be Smaller, With Or Without Trump](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/second-gop-debate-smaller-trump/)
[Read Now](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/second-gop-debate-smaller-trump/)
Recommended
[](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/second-gop-debate-smaller-trump/)
[The Second GOP Debate Could Be Smaller, With Or Without Trump](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/second-gop-debate-smaller-trump/)
[](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-oppose-biden-impeachment-house-republicans/)
[What Americans Think Of The Biden Impeachment Inquiry](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-oppose-biden-impeachment-house-republicans/)
[](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mitt-romney-retire-senate-moderate-republican/)
[The Senate Is Losing One Of Its Few Remaining Moderate Republicans](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mitt-romney-retire-senate-moderate-republican/)
***
### Will Democrats continue to win in Georgia in 2022? \| FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
[All Videos](https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/)[YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/FiveThirtyEight)
***
Notably, too, inflation has soured Americans further on Biden’s job performance. For instance, an [early June poll from Ipsos/ABC News](https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/three-in-five-americans-disapprove-of-bidens-handling-of-economic-recovery) found that only 28 percent of Americans approved of Biden’s handling of inflation; along with his handling of gas prices (27 percent approved), inflation ranked lowest of any of the issues the poll asked about. This stacks up with what’s happened to past presidents, too, as [notable upticks in inflation](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-biden-cant-win-on-inflation/) have often coincided with sharp declines in presidential job approval. This is particularly true of rising gas prices, as studies have found that [gas price increases](https://pprg.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/Presidential-Approval-and-Gas-Prices.pdf) are linked to lower presidential approval — and [gas prices have soared](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-americans-may-or-may-not-blame-biden-for-higher-gas-prices/) during this period of high inflation.
Recently, the [connection between economic perceptions and presidential standing](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-the-economy-still-the-most-important-thing-for-trumps-reelection/) hasn’t been as strong, but political scientists John Sides and Robert Griffin found that [falling consumer sentiment](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/12/biden-approval-economy-inflation-presidential-ratings/) is once again a useful indicator for understanding presidential approval, as it explains a lot of what we’re seeing with the decline in Biden’s approval.
Interestingly, that reconnection between the economy and presidential approval may be partly down to the decreasing confidence Democrats have in the state of the economy. In fact, even though Democrats are still more confident than Republicans or independents about the economy, we can see that Democrats’ opinions about economic conditions are actually worse now than at any time during Trump’s presidency, using consumer sentiment data from the [University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers](https://data.sca.isr.umich.edu/reports.php).
The upshot is that this may have weakened Democratic loyalty to Biden. Just 69 percent to 76 percent of Democrats said they approved of Biden in polls from [Ipsos/Reuters](https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/ipsos-core-political-presidential-approval-tracker-07072022), [YouGov/The Economist](https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/sdsvy1azjc/econTabReport.pdf) and [Morning Consult](https://assets.morningconsult.com/wp-uploads/2022/07/11135504/2206231_crosstabs_GEOPOLITICAL_RISK_RV_RVs_v1_LM.pdf) conducted in early July. This sounds high, but it’s much lower than what [these pollsters](https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2018-07/reuters-ipsos-data-core-political-2018-07-11.pdf) found for [Trump’s approval rating among Republicans](https://morningconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/180708_crosstabs_POLITICO_v1_DK-2.pdf) during the same period [in 2018](https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/j4bk4qaafk/econTabReport.pdf), when it hovered between 84 percent and 88 percent. Of course, economic conditions were more favorable during Trump’s presidency, which may have helped keep Republicans firmly behind Trump, but regardless of party loyalty, the reality is that Biden has lost ground among pretty much every group we have numbers for, [continuing a trend](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/biden-has-lost-support-across-all-groups-of-americans-but-especially-independents-and-hispanics/) we first observed in October.
Back then, close to 35 percent of independents approved of Biden, a figure that’s now sunk to around 30 percent. Meanwhile, Biden’s approval among Black Americans may have fallen even more, going from the high 60s to about 60 percent; among Latino Americans, his approval has gone from around 50 percent to the low-to-mid 40s. White Americans are more Republican-leaning, so Biden had less ground to lose with them to begin with, but even still, his numbers among them have slipped from the high 30s to the mid 30s.
One other group that has soured on Biden is younger Americans, especially considering they were [the most Democratic-leaning](https://abcnews.go.com/Elections/exit-polls-2020-us-presidential-election-results-analysis) age group in 2020 (and in most recent elections). The [Pew Research Center](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/) and the Cooperative Election Study suggest that around 60 percent or more of voters 18 to 29 backed Biden in 2020, yet [recent polls suggest](https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/0atxy0xx1u/econTabReport.pdf) Biden’s approval among that age group has [fallen into the 30s](https://60p3co1nax34ovc830mr2sak-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/June-2022-Omnibus-External-Crosstabs.pdf), or [even lower](https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/us0722-crosstabs-nyt071122/33ffa85627ee4648/full.pdf) in some surveys.
***
### What will Democrats do about the Supreme Court? \| FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
[All Videos](https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/)[YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/FiveThirtyEight)
***
Economic dissatisfaction certainly plays into the disillusionment that young people may have of Biden, but other reports suggest that some of that frustration may also lie in their anger over the Biden administration’s [limited progress on issues](https://www.vox.com/23042037/joe-biden-young-voters-disapprove-progressive-gen-z) like climate change and canceling student debt. Looking ahead to the midterm elections, the discontent young people feel toward the president could be a real problem, as it might dampen their enthusiasm to vote — that could be bad for Democrats since young voters are already [far less likely to turn out](http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/demographics) in midterms than in presidential elections.
As it currently stands, [polls suggest](https://news.gallup.com/poll/394628/americans-intensity-running-high-midterms.aspx) that [Republicans as a whole are more enthusiastic](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/economic-issues-top-publics-agenda-poll/story?id=85183412) than Democrats about the [upcoming election](https://www.foxnews.com/official-polls/fox-news-poll-more-voters-trust-republicans-handle-inflation-crime), although most recent surveys asking that question predate the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing abortion as a constitutional right. This is an issue that could be motivating for Democrats this fall, and in fact, we’ve already seen some movement toward Democrats in our generic ballot average. It remains to be seen, though, whether that’s a short-term blip or a more long-lasting change in the electoral environment, and of course someone who is unenthusiastic can still vote — an unenthusiastic vote counts the same as an enthusiastic one.
***
### I do buy that Dems’ energizing over abortion evens midterms equation: Silver
[All Videos](https://fivethirtyeight.com/videos/)[YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/FiveThirtyEight)
***
Nevertheless, the historical relationship between presidential approval and the performance of the president’s party in midterm elections should scare Democrats. Generally speaking, the worse a president’s approval is, [the more seats that party tends to lose](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/some-early-clues-about-how-the-midterms-will-go/) in the House.2 Thinking back to that first chart, three of the four presidents preceding Biden saw their party [lose at least 40 House seats](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-the-presidents-party-almost-always-has-a-bad-midterm/) in their first midterm election. The exception was Bush, whose party actually gained six seats in the 2002 election, but he had an unusually high approval rating at the time of his first midterm. That’s still notable, though, because it means it has taken that kind of anomaly to see the president’s party suffer fewer losses — or even achieve gains — in House elections.
We can’t know for sure where Biden’s approval will go from here, but many of the factors playing into his approval rating don’t look likely to disappear anytime soon. And that could be a major anchor weighing down Democrats this fall.
## Footnotes
1. As of 5 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday.
2. This relationship is somewhat true for the Senate, too, but because only about one-third of Senate seats are up each cycle, it’s not a truly national election like it is for the House, where all 435 seats are up. For instance, while [Republicans lost control of the House](https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/house/) in the 2018 election, they actually [gained two seats](https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/senate/) in the Senate despite Trump’s approval rating sitting in the low 40s.
Geoffrey Skelley is a senior elections analyst at FiveThirtyEight. [@geoffreyvs](https://twitter.com/geoffreyvs)
Filed under
[Joe Biden (667 posts)](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/joe-biden/) [2022 Election (355)](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/2022-election/) [2022 Midterms (207)](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/2022-midterms/) [The Biden Administration (148)](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-biden-administration/) [Presidential Approval (85)](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/presidential-approval/)
### Comments
## Latest Interactives
### More in Presidential Approval
- [](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/improving-economy-help-biden-2024/ "Why 'Bidenomics' Isn't Working For Biden")
[2024 Election](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/2024-election/)
[Why 'Bidenomics' Isn't Working For Biden](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/improving-economy-help-biden-2024/) Sep 12, 2023
- [](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/biden-approval-black-hispanic-voters/ "Are Black And Hispanic Americans Abandoning Biden?")
[2024 Election](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/2024-election/)
[Are Black And Hispanic Americans Abandoning Biden?](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/biden-approval-black-hispanic-voters/) May 31, 2023
- [](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/in-defense-of-the-mostly-pointless-state-of-the-union/ "In Defense Of The Mostly Pointless State Of The Union")
[The Biden Administration](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/the-biden-administration/)
[In Defense Of The Mostly Pointless State Of The Union](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/in-defense-of-the-mostly-pointless-state-of-the-union/) Feb 7, 2023
- [](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/whats-driving-bidens-approval-rating-up/ "What's Driving Biden's Approval Rating Up?")
[Presidential Approval](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/presidential-approval/)
[What's Driving Biden's Approval Rating Up?](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/whats-driving-bidens-approval-rating-up/) Sep 2, 2022
### Latest
- [Impeachment](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/impeachment/)
[What Americans Think Of The Biden Impeachment Inquiry](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-oppose-biden-impeachment-house-republicans/) Sep 14, 2023
- [2024 Election](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/2024-election/)
[The Senate Is Losing One Of Its Few Remaining Moderate Republicans](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/mitt-romney-retire-senate-moderate-republican/) Sep 13, 2023
- [Politics Podcast](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/politics-podcast/)
[Politics Podcast: Polling Silly Season Begins](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/politics-podcast-why-biden-is-losing-support-among-voters-of-color/) Sep 11, 2023
- [Ron DeSantis](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/ron-desantis/)
[Ron DeSantis Probably Didn't Turn Florida Red](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/ron-desantis-probably-didnt-turn-florida-red/) Sep 11, 2023
Get more FiveThirtyEight
- [Store](https://cottonbureau.com/stores/fivethirtyeight#/shop)
- [Twitter](https://twitter.com/fivethirtyeight)
- [Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/fivethirtyeight)
- [Data](https://data.fivethirtyeight.com/)
- [RSS](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fear-not-readers-we-have-rss-feeds/)
- [Follow @FiveThirtyEight](https://twitter.com/FiveThirtyEight)
- [About Us](https://fivethirtyeight.com/about-us/)
- [Jobs](https://fivethirtyeight.com/jobs/)
- [Masthead](https://fivethirtyeight.com/masthead/)
- [Pitch FiveThirtyEight](https://fivethirtyeight.com/how-to-pitch-fivethirtyeight/)
- [Advertise With Us](https://disneyadsales.com/our-brands/abc-news/)
- [About Nielsen Measurement](http://priv-policy.imrworldwide.com/priv/browser/us/en/optout.html)
Powered by [WordPress VIP](https://wpvip.com/?utm_source=vip_powered_wpcom&utm_medium=web&utm_campaign=VIP%20Footer%20Credit&utm_term=fivethirtyeight.com)
- [Terms of Use](https://disneytermsofuse.com/)
- [Privacy Policy](https://disneyprivacycenter.com/)
- [Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information](https://privacy.thewaltdisneycompany.com/en/dnssmpi/)
- [Your US State Privacy Rights](https://privacy.thewaltdisneycompany.com/en/current-privacy-policy/your-us-state-privacy-rights/)
- [Children's Online Privacy Policy](https://disneyprivacycenter.com/kids-privacy-policy/english/)
- [Interest-Based Ads](https://privacy.thewaltdisneycompany.com/en/privacy-controls/online-tracking-and-advertising/)
© 2026 ABC News Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.
Close Additional Information
[Terms of Use](https://disneytermsofuse.com/) and [Privacy Policy](https://disneyprivacycenter.com/) and Safety Information/[Your California Privacy Rights](https://disneyprivacycenter.com/notice-to-california-residents/)/[Children's Online Privacy Policy](https://disneyprivacycenter.com/kids-privacy-policy/english/) are applicable to you. © 2026 ABC News Internet Ventures. All rights reserved. [Interest-Based Ads](https://privacy.thewaltdisneycompany.com/en/privacy-controls/online-tracking-and-advertising/). [Cookie Policy](https://disneyprivacycenter.com/cookies-policy-translations/cookies-policy/). | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Readable Markdown | 
Drew Angerer/Getty Images
In games such as golf, you win by scoring lower than any of your opponents. But in the realm of presidential job approval, such an approach is a recipe for political upheaval, as President Biden has found over the past few months. Polls continue to show his approval rating in poor shape, and [even Democrats are asking questions](https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/11/us/politics/biden-approval-polling-2024.html) about his political future amid broad dissatisfaction with the current state of the country.
In fact, Biden is dancing with a bleak bit of history: His [approval rating of 39 percent](https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/biden-approval-rating/)1 is now the worst of any elected president at this point in his presidency since the end of World War II, according to FiveThirtyEight’s historical presidential approval data. In other words, Biden is arguably in worse shape than any other elected president heading into his first midterm election, including his four most recent predecessors, who, like Biden, were operating in an increasingly polarized political climate.
After entering office, most recent presidents see a decline in their approval ratings, but since Biden’s numbers peaked at 55 percent in March 2021, they have moved in only one direction: down. To some extent, President Barack Obama’s approval rating followed a similar trajectory, but he started off with better numbers than any of the other four most recent presidents and was still well above where Biden is at this point in his presidency.
### How the latest Jan. 6 hearing testimony could affect midterm elections
By comparison, President Bill Clinton actually mounted a comeback nearly a year into his presidency before his approval fell again in the latter part of 1994. Even President Donald Trump’s low approval rating ticked back up into the low 40s in 2018 after falling to 36 percent in December 2017. And, of course, President George W. Bush topped them all when his approval jumped to a record-high 88 percent in 2001 due to a [rally-around-the-flag moment](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rally-around-the-flag-events-are-rare/) shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Why is Biden’s approval so low? For starters, Americans have a really dim view of how things are going in the U.S. For instance, about 75 percent believe the country is on the wrong track according to the [RealClearPolitics average](https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/direction_of_country-902.html) of recent polls, while only 18 percent say the country is moving in the right direction. To be sure, Americans have long held negative views about the direction the country is moving in — RCP’s average hasn’t been net positive once in the past 13 years — but this is still the highest level of dissatisfaction since 2011.
[Many factors](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-happens-when-americans-dont-trust-institutions/) are [driving](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/americans-feel-burnt-out-personally-and-politically/) this overall [feeling of dissatisfaction](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/are-americans-unhappy/) among Americans, but inflation is arguably the biggest reason. Inflation, which is at its [highest point since the early 1980s](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=rocU), has [consistently ranked as the top issue](https://fivethirtyeight.com/tag/american-issues/) Americans are worried about in our polling with Ipsos. In the most recent [FiveThirtyEight/Ipsos](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/abortion-birth-control-poll/) poll, 62 percent of Americans told us that inflation or increasing prices was one of the most important issues facing the country, ranking far ahead of any other topic we asked about.
### Will Democrats continue to win in Georgia in 2022? \| FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
Notably, too, inflation has soured Americans further on Biden’s job performance. For instance, an [early June poll from Ipsos/ABC News](https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/three-in-five-americans-disapprove-of-bidens-handling-of-economic-recovery) found that only 28 percent of Americans approved of Biden’s handling of inflation; along with his handling of gas prices (27 percent approved), inflation ranked lowest of any of the issues the poll asked about. This stacks up with what’s happened to past presidents, too, as [notable upticks in inflation](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-biden-cant-win-on-inflation/) have often coincided with sharp declines in presidential job approval. This is particularly true of rising gas prices, as studies have found that [gas price increases](https://pprg.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/Presidential-Approval-and-Gas-Prices.pdf) are linked to lower presidential approval — and [gas prices have soared](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-americans-may-or-may-not-blame-biden-for-higher-gas-prices/) during this period of high inflation.
Recently, the [connection between economic perceptions and presidential standing](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/is-the-economy-still-the-most-important-thing-for-trumps-reelection/) hasn’t been as strong, but political scientists John Sides and Robert Griffin found that [falling consumer sentiment](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/12/biden-approval-economy-inflation-presidential-ratings/) is once again a useful indicator for understanding presidential approval, as it explains a lot of what we’re seeing with the decline in Biden’s approval.
Interestingly, that reconnection between the economy and presidential approval may be partly down to the decreasing confidence Democrats have in the state of the economy. In fact, even though Democrats are still more confident than Republicans or independents about the economy, we can see that Democrats’ opinions about economic conditions are actually worse now than at any time during Trump’s presidency, using consumer sentiment data from the [University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers](https://data.sca.isr.umich.edu/reports.php).
The upshot is that this may have weakened Democratic loyalty to Biden. Just 69 percent to 76 percent of Democrats said they approved of Biden in polls from [Ipsos/Reuters](https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/ipsos-core-political-presidential-approval-tracker-07072022), [YouGov/The Economist](https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/sdsvy1azjc/econTabReport.pdf) and [Morning Consult](https://assets.morningconsult.com/wp-uploads/2022/07/11135504/2206231_crosstabs_GEOPOLITICAL_RISK_RV_RVs_v1_LM.pdf) conducted in early July. This sounds high, but it’s much lower than what [these pollsters](https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2018-07/reuters-ipsos-data-core-political-2018-07-11.pdf) found for [Trump’s approval rating among Republicans](https://morningconsult.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/180708_crosstabs_POLITICO_v1_DK-2.pdf) during the same period [in 2018](https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/j4bk4qaafk/econTabReport.pdf), when it hovered between 84 percent and 88 percent. Of course, economic conditions were more favorable during Trump’s presidency, which may have helped keep Republicans firmly behind Trump, but regardless of party loyalty, the reality is that Biden has lost ground among pretty much every group we have numbers for, [continuing a trend](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/biden-has-lost-support-across-all-groups-of-americans-but-especially-independents-and-hispanics/) we first observed in October.
Back then, close to 35 percent of independents approved of Biden, a figure that’s now sunk to around 30 percent. Meanwhile, Biden’s approval among Black Americans may have fallen even more, going from the high 60s to about 60 percent; among Latino Americans, his approval has gone from around 50 percent to the low-to-mid 40s. White Americans are more Republican-leaning, so Biden had less ground to lose with them to begin with, but even still, his numbers among them have slipped from the high 30s to the mid 30s.
One other group that has soured on Biden is younger Americans, especially considering they were [the most Democratic-leaning](https://abcnews.go.com/Elections/exit-polls-2020-us-presidential-election-results-analysis) age group in 2020 (and in most recent elections). The [Pew Research Center](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/) and the Cooperative Election Study suggest that around 60 percent or more of voters 18 to 29 backed Biden in 2020, yet [recent polls suggest](https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/0atxy0xx1u/econTabReport.pdf) Biden’s approval among that age group has [fallen into the 30s](https://60p3co1nax34ovc830mr2sak-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/June-2022-Omnibus-External-Crosstabs.pdf), or [even lower](https://int.nyt.com/data/documenttools/us0722-crosstabs-nyt071122/33ffa85627ee4648/full.pdf) in some surveys.
### What will Democrats do about the Supreme Court? \| FiveThirtyEight Politics Podcast
Economic dissatisfaction certainly plays into the disillusionment that young people may have of Biden, but other reports suggest that some of that frustration may also lie in their anger over the Biden administration’s [limited progress on issues](https://www.vox.com/23042037/joe-biden-young-voters-disapprove-progressive-gen-z) like climate change and canceling student debt. Looking ahead to the midterm elections, the discontent young people feel toward the president could be a real problem, as it might dampen their enthusiasm to vote — that could be bad for Democrats since young voters are already [far less likely to turn out](http://www.electproject.org/home/voter-turnout/demographics) in midterms than in presidential elections.
As it currently stands, [polls suggest](https://news.gallup.com/poll/394628/americans-intensity-running-high-midterms.aspx) that [Republicans as a whole are more enthusiastic](https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/economic-issues-top-publics-agenda-poll/story?id=85183412) than Democrats about the [upcoming election](https://www.foxnews.com/official-polls/fox-news-poll-more-voters-trust-republicans-handle-inflation-crime), although most recent surveys asking that question predate the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision establishing abortion as a constitutional right. This is an issue that could be motivating for Democrats this fall, and in fact, we’ve already seen some movement toward Democrats in our generic ballot average. It remains to be seen, though, whether that’s a short-term blip or a more long-lasting change in the electoral environment, and of course someone who is unenthusiastic can still vote — an unenthusiastic vote counts the same as an enthusiastic one.
### I do buy that Dems’ energizing over abortion evens midterms equation: Silver
Nevertheless, the historical relationship between presidential approval and the performance of the president’s party in midterm elections should scare Democrats. Generally speaking, the worse a president’s approval is, [the more seats that party tends to lose](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/some-early-clues-about-how-the-midterms-will-go/) in the House.2 Thinking back to that first chart, three of the four presidents preceding Biden saw their party [lose at least 40 House seats](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-the-presidents-party-almost-always-has-a-bad-midterm/) in their first midterm election. The exception was Bush, whose party actually gained six seats in the 2002 election, but he had an unusually high approval rating at the time of his first midterm. That’s still notable, though, because it means it has taken that kind of anomaly to see the president’s party suffer fewer losses — or even achieve gains — in House elections.
We can’t know for sure where Biden’s approval will go from here, but many of the factors playing into his approval rating don’t look likely to disappear anytime soon. And that could be a major anchor weighing down Democrats this fall.
## Footnotes
1. As of 5 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday.
2. This relationship is somewhat true for the Senate, too, but because only about one-third of Senate seats are up each cycle, it’s not a truly national election like it is for the House, where all 435 seats are up. For instance, while [Republicans lost control of the House](https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/house/) in the 2018 election, they actually [gained two seats](https://www.politico.com/election-results/2018/senate/) in the Senate despite Trump’s approval rating sitting in the low 40s.
Geoffrey Skelley is a senior elections analyst at FiveThirtyEight. [@geoffreyvs](https://twitter.com/geoffreyvs) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| ML Classification | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| ML Categories |
Raw JSON{
"/News": 626,
"/News/Politics": 623,
"/Law_and_Government": 438,
"/Law_and_Government/Government": 427,
"/News/Politics/Campaigns_and_Elections": 386,
"/Law_and_Government/Government/Executive_Branch": 257,
"/People_and_Society": 128
} | |||||||||||||||||||||
| ML Page Types |
Raw JSON{
"/Article": 995,
"/Article/News_Update": 881
} | |||||||||||||||||||||
| ML Intent Types |
Raw JSON{
"Informational": 999
} | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Content Metadata | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Language | en-us | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Author | Geoffrey Skelley | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Publish Time | 2022-07-14 10:00:00 (3 years ago) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Original Publish Time | 2022-07-14 10:00:00 (3 years ago) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Republished | No | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Word Count (Total) | 1,892 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Word Count (Content) | 1,533 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Links | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| External Links | 72 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Internal Links | 52 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Technical SEO | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Meta Nofollow | No | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Meta Noarchive | No | |||||||||||||||||||||
| JS Rendered | No | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Redirect Target | null | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Performance | ||||||||||||||||||||||
| Download Time (ms) | 422 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| TTFB (ms) | 415 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Download Size (bytes) | 22,860 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Shard | 32 (laksa) | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Root Hash | 17337764718892639832 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Unparsed URL | com,fivethirtyeight!/features/whats-behind-bidens-record-low-approval-rating/ s443 | |||||||||||||||||||||