Joe Biden’s approval rating has hit a record low in the latest Gallup poll as a majority of Americans disapprove of his job as president for the first time in the Gallup measurement since his inauguration in January. A record 53% of Americans now disapprove of Biden’s job while his approval ratings have fallen month after month during the Spring and Summer months.
According to the latest Gallup poll, Joe Biden’s approval rating has hit a new low of 43%.
Gallup blamed the record low for Biden’s disastrous performance in Afghanistan, where 13 American troops were killed and thousands of Americans were left stranded in a nation controlled by terrorist forces and the Taliban.
“These findings are from a Sept. 1-17 Gallup poll that was conducted after the U.S. military evacuated more than 120,000 people from Afghanistan. The United States’ exit from the nation’s longest war was marred by the Taliban’s quick takeover of most of the country and a suicide bombing at the airport in Kabul, which killed 13 U.S. service members. Over the same period, COVID-19 infection rates, nationally, were surging, leading to hospital overflows in some regions,” it said.
The latest drop in Biden’s job approval score is the second significant decline since June. Biden’s honeymoon ratings near 55% first faltered in July, falling to 50% amid rising COVID-19 cases caused largely by the delta variant. In Gallup’s Aug. 2-17 poll, Biden’s rating was essentially unchanged, at 49%.
Midway through the most recent poll’s field period, as U.S. COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths continued to rise, Biden announced new directives to limit the spread of the disease, including vaccine requirements for private-sector businesses, healthcare workers and federal government contractors.
Among elected presidents since World War II, Biden has the second lowest job approval rating at this point of his presidency.
Gallup indicated independent voters have abandoned the pro-abortion president in droves.
Democrats’ approval of the job Biden is doing has remained high and not varied by more than eight points since he took office. Their highest rating of Biden was 98% in late January/early February, and their lowest is the current 90%. Republicans’ ratings of Biden are similarly stable at the other extreme, ranging from 12% in February and July to 6% this month.
Independents have shown the greatest variation in their opinions of how Biden is doing. Biden’s current 37% approval rating among independents is his lowest to date and 24 points below his personal high of 61%. Two-thirds of Biden’s slide among independents since he took office has occurred in the past three months.
Surprisingly, Gallup says Kamala Harris has higher approval ratings than Biden.
For the first time, Gallup asked Americans to evaluate how Vice President Kamala Harris is doing in her role. Her ratings are better than Biden’s by six points, with 49% approving and 49% disapproving.
Because Gallup has not measured vice presidential job approval frequently across presidential administrations, it is not possible to compare Harris’ ratings with those of most other vice presidents. However, Gallup did measure Biden’s job approval rating as vice president in July 2009, about six months into his term in the Obama administration.
At that time, Biden had a 49% approval rating, identical to Harris’ now, but fewer (39%) disapproved of Biden and more (10%) did not have an opinion. Yet, in contrast to today’s pattern with Harris exceeding Biden in approval, in 2009, Biden’s rating lagged behind Obama’s 61% approval by 12 points.
Harris enjoys nearly unanimous approval from Democrats (92%) while receiving very low approval from Republicans (4%). Her overall approval rating is higher than Biden’s primarily because independents rate her performance better than they rate Biden’s, 46% versus 37%, respectively.
