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Biden's Dispproval Rating Is at His Highest Yet in Poll

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  October 20, 2023 5:00 PM

The world's been on fire--literally--during President Joe Biden's time in office, so it's not surprising that his approval ratings have been underwater for years now, since several months into his presidency, when he once enjoyed relatively high numbers. As he's running for reelection, though, the numbers continue to look bad for him, so much so that he may no longer be the favored candidate to win come 2024, assuming he even ends up being the Democratic nominee.

Currently, Biden is at a 41.2 percent approval rating, while 55.2 percent disapprove, according to RealClearPolitics (RCP), giving him a spread for -14. He's had some slightly worse disapproval averages before, such as when he was at a 55.9 percent disapproval rating on June 3. His disapproval ratings also hovered on averages around 56 and even 57 percent in June of last year.

Particularly bad news for Biden though came in the form of polls released this week. For instance, a CNBC poll showed him with his disapproval rating at 58 percent. His approval rating is at just 37 percent.

Here's what the CNBC write-up had to say about this takeway from the poll, with added emphasis:

Meanwhile, a combination of negative views on the economy and geopolitical tensions looks to be eroding support for President Biden. Americans’ overall approval rating for the president fell to 37% with 58% disapproving. It’s the highest disapproval and second-lowest approval rating of Biden’s presidency.

Biden’s 32% approval rating on the economy is the lowest of his presidency, while the 63% economic disapproval rating is the second lowest.

Even while Biden moved quickly to publicly support Israel and provide additional aid, the public is giving the president poor marks for this handling of foreign policy. Just 31% approve and 60% disapprove.

A part of Biden’s problem looks to come from within his own party. Just 66% of Democrats support his handling of foreign policy and 74% back his handling of the economy, compared with 81% overall approval by Democrats.

“You don’t get sub 40 approval ratings without losing large chunks of your base. And that’s what’s happening here,″ said Micah Roberts, partner at Public Opinion Strategies, the Republican pollster for the survey. He called the data “distressing numbers for a president facing reelection.”

Jay Campbell, partner at Hart Research Associates, the Democratic pollster for the survey, said the numbers among young people, Black people and Latinos “are very troubling” for Biden. They have been among the hardest hit economically and “you start to think that maybe they’ve run out of patience, and it’s starting to show through in their decreasing regard for the president,” Campbell said.

The New York Post highlighted such a grim takeaway in their coverage of the poll. "Disapproval rating for President Biden hits record-high of 58% in new poll," read a headline. 

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There's more bad news for Biden when it comes to a rematch between the current president and former and potentially future President Donald Trump. "Biden would lose in matchup vs. Trump, according to CNBC survey; Israel funding has strong support," the headline for the write-up read. As mentioned in the excerpt above, even while Americans support funding Israel, they don't support the president's handling of it. Trump leads with 46 percent to Biden's 42 percent, with 12 percent undecided. 

Guy discussed how the poll factors into the matchup in his VIP piece earlier on Friday, suggesting this poll and others favorable to Trump in such a matchup make him the frontrunner.

The poll was conducted October 11-15, with 1,001 adults surveyed and a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

But, that wasn't even the only poll recently released to show bad news for the incumbent president running for reelection. A CBS News/YouGov poll also showed Biden with a particularly wide discrepency, with just a 40 percent approval rating and a 60 percent disapproval rating. 

The poll focused the Israel-Hamas war. Respondents gave Biden low marks on his handling of the situation, just as they do when it comes to his approval rating overall. 

These findings are consistent with other polls we've covered showing how respondents disapprove of Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas war. It'll be interesting to see if Biden's speech on Thursday night moves the needle at all. It doesn't seem likely, especially when he spoke at length about other foreign policy crises, such as Ukraine. 

This poll was conducted October 16-19 with 1,878 adults and a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. 

RCP shows Biden with a 38.4 percent approval rating overall on foreign policy, while 57.3 percent disapprove.

That being said, that doesn't mean the Republican Party should give into unbridled optimism. Despite how high Biden's disapproval ratings were in June of last year, his party still did much better than expected in the 2022 midterms. Further, the American people don't seem to be too pleased with the dysfunction going on in the Republican-controlled House where Republicans can't get their act together enough to pick a speaker, despite having gone through two nominees now since Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was ousted earlier this month,

The polls can change between now and next November--still almost 13 months away--for better or for worse.