Politics

AP: 61% Of Americans Say Biden Is Off To A Good Start

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Anders Hagstrom White House Correspondent
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President Joe Biden has a 61 percent approval rating for his first days in office, according to a Thursday poll from the Associated Press.

Biden enjoys overwhelming support from his fellow Democrats, as well as 23 percent of Republicans, according to the poll. AP conducted the questioning alongside the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, finding that Biden has returned to the traditional honeymoon period in which U.S. presidents typically enjoy high approval ratings as their administration gets rolling. President Donald Trump is alone among recent presidents in having not broken a 50 percent approval rating in his opening weeks.

Democrats approve of Biden 97-3, compared with Republicans’ 23-77 rate, according to the poll. While Biden has styled his presidency on unification, just 20 percent of respondents said they were confident in Biden’s ability to work with Republicans. Another 45 percent said they had “only some confidence” in the same.

President Joe Biden (L) and Vice President Kamala Harris, arrive to conduct their first campaign trail press conference together in Wilmington, Delaware, on Aug. 12, 2020. (Photo by OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)

Biden has defined his opening days in office with a slew of executive orders both addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and erasing all he can of the previous administration. (RELATED: Biden To Sign Three Executive Orders On Immigration Rolling Back Trump Policies)

Ending Trump policies and even removing his appointees has become a theme of the Biden administration from top to bottom. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Tuesday took the step in dismissing all members of the Pentagon’s policy advisory boards.

The Trump administration had made numerous last-minute appointments to the boards before leaving office. Officials in such positions enjoy robust job protections and would have required Biden to prove both that the Trump appointee was unqualified and that the previous administration had intentionally skipped over a more qualified candidate. Austin’s solution gets around those requirements by firing everyone, irrespective of who appointed them.