It’s a low blow for Joe.
Joe Biden is the least popular commander in chief at this point of his presidency in the last 70 years, below even Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, according to a blistering new poll — imperiling his chances of re-election.
Biden, 81, notched a dismal 38.7% job approval rating for the first quarter of 2024, the venerable Gallup Poll found in a survey released Friday, three points lower than that of the one-term George H.W. Bush at the same point in his presidency.
“With about six months remaining before Election Day, Biden stands in a weaker position than any prior incumbent,” the pollsters concluded.
In contrast, former President Donald Trump, who is vying with Biden for a second White House term, had a 46.8% approval rating at this point in his presidency.
Even Nixon and Carter had higher ratings than Biden, with 53.7% and 47.7%, respectively, and Eisenhower had the highest rating at 72.3%, according to the poll.
The results of Gallup’s presidential approval polls, which the organization has compiled since the presidency of Dwight D. Eisenhower began in 1952, have been strongly predictive of re-election success.
Historically, every incumbent in the past seven decades with an approval rating above 50% has won a second term. Only Barack Obama bucked the trend: his 2012 victory came despite a middling 46% approval six months ahead of that year’s general election.
No first-term president in Gallup’s history has returned to the White House with approval numbers as low as Biden’s — whose results this quarter ranked among the worst of the post-World War II era, in the bottom 12% of all presidential quarters going back to 1945.
And while this quarter marks a new low for Biden in Gallup’s polling, his popularity has remained stubbornly mired in the low 40s since the first year of his presidency, amid skyrocketing inflation, a worsening border crisis and the disastrous pullout from Afghanistan.
His re-election campaign has been plagued by embarrassing gaffes, and aides have struggled to shield their octogenarian boss from the press as his halting, shuffling gait offers evidence of his advanced age.
Yet current polls show the 2024 presidential election as a tight race, with Trump holding a 0.3% edge over Biden in the RealClearPolitics aggregate of national polls.
Gallup’s national survey of 1,001 Americans, conducted from April 1 to April 22, has a 4-point margin of error.
Biden’s historic low compared to other US presidents
President Biden’s approval rating 39 months into his presidency is the lowest of any elected chief executive in modern American history, according to Gallup.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower (1956): 73.2%
- Ronald Reagan (1984): 54.5%
- Richard Nixon (1972): 53.7%
- Bill Clinton (1996): 53.0%
- George W. Bush (2004): 51.0%
- Jimmy Carter (1980): 47.7%
- Donald Trump (2020): 46.8%
- Barack Obama (2012): 45.9%
- George H.W. Bush (1992): 41.8%
- Joe Biden (2024): 38.7%
