As of Thursday morning, President Joe Biden is experiencing his lowest RealClearPolitics (RCP) average approval rating, which is currently at 37.1 percent, while 57.4 percent disapprove. This comes after Biden hit a record low in two polls, NPR/PBS News Hour/Marist and Quinnipiac, both which were released on Wednesday.
In the former poll, Biden is at a 36 percent approval rating, a 4 percent approval drop from June, according to an NPR write-up, and a 9 percent drop among his own party members. As was the takeaway with last month's poll, the president is significantly losing support among fellow Democrats.
As has been a significant sore spot for Biden over recent months, more and more polls show him faring worse than former President Donald Trump, especially when it comes to members of his own party. From NPR:
While 75% of Democrats approve of the job Biden is doing, that's considered low for a president's own party. Last month, 84% of Democrats said they approved of the job Biden was doing, according to the survey.
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For context, Donald Trump's approval within his party when he was president was never that low in the poll, not even after the Jan. 6 insurrection (77%) or the Charlottesville, Va., white supremacist demonstration (76%), at which one person was killed — and whose participants Trump dismissed as "very fine people, on both sides."
The NPR write-up, as Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media are prone to do, miscategorized Trump's remarks, since he made clear that he was "not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally."
A strong plurality of national adults and registered voters, at 43 and 44 percent respectively, say they "strongly disapprove" of Biden's performance. A plurality of Democrats, at 45 percent, "approve" of Biden's performance, while 30 percent "strongly approve."
Democrats souring on Biden isn't the only repeated takeaway. NPR also adds:
Biden has continually faced a lack of enthusiasm among his base. He was never progressives' preferred choice for president, but many held their nose to vote for him against Trump.
That was certainly true for younger voters. In 2020, voters 45 and younger went for Biden by a 56%-42% margin, according to exit polls. But in this survey, 63% say they disapprove of the job Biden is doing. Just 30% approve, compared with 40% of those 45 and older.
Younger voters are also among the least enthusiastic about Biden — just 5% say they strongly approve of the job he's doing, on par with whites without college degrees and white evangelical Christians, reliably Republican voters.
Polls consistently showing that Biden is not faring well with younger voters, who tend to vote Democratic. It's looking increasingly likely that a progressive will challenge Biden in 2024, as I highlighted earlier in the week.
A plurality of both white voters and non-white voters, at 46 percent and 38 percent, respectively, say they "strongly disapprove" of the job Biden is doing. The NPR write-up notes that the 40 percent approval rating from non-white voters is "not where Biden — or any Democrat — would want that figure to be.
Further, 50 percent of male voters say they "strongly disapprove" of Biden, while a plurality of women, at 37 percent, say the same thing. Overall, 62 percent of male voters and 53 percent of women voters disapprove of his performance.
The NPR write-up mentioned last week's poll from The New York Times/Siena College, which, as Guy and Leah highlighted, show not even fellow Democrats want Biden to run again and that there are problems with young voters.
When it comes to the upcoming November midterms, now about three and a half months away, the write-up cautions that Biden is not where he wants to be, though Democrats seem to faring better on the congressional ballot:
Biden's cratered approval numbers are a bad sign for Democrats in this midterm election year. The party in power traditionally faces headwinds in a president's first midterm, and when its president's approval rating is this low, that can spell even more trouble.
That said, Democrats are outpacing Biden's approval ratings in the congressional ballot, in which poll respondents are asked, if the election were held today, whether they would vote for the generic Democrat or Republican. Democrats are doing the same in several Senate races as well. And while Republicans are still heavily favored to win control of the House, Democrats hope to stem the damage, in part because of increased Democratic enthusiasm to vote after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, as they paint Republicans as extreme.
It's worth pointing out, though, that polls in previous years had overestimated Democrats' performance in midterms, and that Republicans are still favored to win back control of the U.S. House of Representatives, and potentially the U.S. Senate.
The poll interviewed 1,160 adults from July 7-11, with results being significant at plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
The Quinnipiac poll has Biden at a 31 percent approval rating among Americans, while 33 percent of registered voters approve. The poll notably has Biden at just a 71 percent approval rating among Democrats.
This poll also shows a majority of overall respondents and Democrats, at 71 percent and 54 percent respectively do not want Biden to run again. This is another area in which Biden fares worse than Trump. For while a majority of overall respondents, at 64 percent, don't want Trump to run again, 69 percent of Republicans do want him to run again.
Biden also has a lower favorable rating, at 35 percent, than Trump's 37 percent. His unfavorable rating at 58 percent is also higher than Trump's 55 percent.
Quinnipiac polled respondents on their most important issues as well, with 34 percent choosing inflation and 12 percent choosing gun violence, though no other issue received double-digit support.
The poll interviewed 1,523 adults from July 14-18, with a margin of error of 2.5 percentage points.
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