President Joe Biden has an approval rating of just 44%, his lowest since entering office, according to a Thursday poll from Reuters.
Reuters and Ipsos conducted the poll Wednesday and Thursday, finding that swaths of Americans are turning sour on Biden’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. His disapproval rating sits at 50%, according to the poll. Biden’s current polling is among the lowest for any sitting president at this time in office, excepting former President Donald Trump who sat at 38% approval his first year. (RELATED: ‘It’s A Nightmare Number For The White House’: Politico Reporter Breaks Down Biden’s Falling Approval Ratings)
Biden’s approval rating has continued to slip since June, with many Americans disapproving of his handling of the immigration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. While he came into office with a high approval rating with regard to his COVID-19 policies, just 48% approve of those policies now, according to the poll. It is the first time his approval on COVID-19 has slipped below 50%.
Biden has also taken a hit thanks to his handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. While the vast majority of Americans supported ending the 20-year long war, they did not approve of how Biden executed the withdrawal. Biden had vowed earlier this year that the U.S. would conduct a “safe and orderly” withdrawal. Instead, the departure was deadly and frantic, costing the lives of 13 U.S. servicemembers and failing to evacuate more than 100 U.S. citizens and tens of thousands of Afghan allies.
Latest estimate of Biden’s net approval rating in The Economist/YouGov polls is -6. The president is being dragged down this week by a low outlier among Democrats, but also a strong negative trend among Independents and people under 44 (-20pp since July).https://t.co/IVjBfI5OAY pic.twitter.com/3HdHol8wjc
— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) September 8, 2021
The Biden White House has sought to deflect blame for the Afghanistan debacle to former President Donald Trump’s administration as well as the former Afghan government. Biden argued that Trump failed to enforce the conditions of his peace agreement with the Taliban. The White House also argued that the Afghan military simply failed to fight for its own survival.
The country remains deeply divided on whether domestic or international terrorism represents the most severe threat to the U.S. The vast majority of Republicans argue it is international terrorism, while Democrats overwhelmingly say the opposite. Among independents, 41% argue international terrorism is the prime threat, while 49% argue it is domestic.
Despite his personal polling, however, many of Biden’s policies — the American Rescue, Jobs, and Families plans — remain largely popular.