When Quinnipiac released its poll last month showing that President Joe Biden's approval rating was doing so poorly that he was at a 33 percent approval rating, the president's supporters chalked it up to it being an outlier. This includes a memo from the White House, as I highlighted last month, which claimed the president's approval rating at the time was really at 43 percent at the time, according to the average from FiveThirtyEight. That's still quite bad, and why CNN's Chris Cillizza called the memo "baffling."
The White House is not likely to continue touting FiveThirtyEight, though, considering that Biden's average approval rating has gone down since then. As of Thursday afternoon, it's now at 41.3 percent, while 52.6 percent disapprove. And the White House is surely not likely to share the average from RealClearPolitics (RCP), which as of Thursday has Biden at an average approval rating of 40.6 percent while 53.8 percent disapprove.
Biden approval under 40% for first time. https://t.co/Qq6Vf51qST
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) February 9, 2022
Believe it or not, this 40.6 is actually a slim improvement, as on Wednesday Biden's average approval rating was at 39.8 percent. A little over a year into his term, Biden's approval rating is under 40 percent. If Biden serves out his term, he has at least three years left to serve, more if he runs for reelection and wins. It's going to be a long presidency.
RCP Average Job Approval Ratings on Feb 8:
— Tom Bevan (@TomBevanRCP) February 8, 2022
2022: Biden 40.6%
2018: Trump 42.1%
2010: Obama 47.9%
2002: Bush 81.2%https://t.co/Qq6Vf5j1Kr
Tom Bevan, the co-founder of RCP, on Tuesday had also tweeted out a comparison of how other presidents before Biden were faring at this point in their presidency. Not only was Biden below 40 percent for the first time, he also fared worse than Trump. Remember how Democrats, the mainstream media, and other allies loved to stress in previous months how, as poorly as Biden was doing, at least he was doing better than Trump? That can no longer be said.
Believe it or not, Rasmussen is one of the more kind polls towards Biden with their poll from February 7-9, which has him at a 43 percent approval rating, while 55 percent disapprove. A Reuters/Ipsos poll from February 7-8 has him at a 43 percent approval rating while 51 percent disapprove.
Another poll this month, though, has Biden once more in the 30s with his approval rating, as an IBD/TIPP poll from February 2-4 had Biden at a 38 percent approval rating and a 48 percent disapproval rating.
Various polls and headlines as of late have said that Biden's approval ratings are a new personal low, at least for that poll. One can look to individual polls, too, and see how the president has gone down over time. His decline from the start of his first year in office to the end of it was so steep it was the worst.
Similarly to Biden's approval numbers, RCP's polling data on the direction of the country is a scary picture. On average, just 27.6 percent think we're going in the right direction, while 65.1 percent say the wrong track.
Looking to Biden's poll numbers, as well as other factors such as historical trends and the record-high amount of Democrats retiring, one can surely expect there to be a blowout come November's midterm elections.