(Daily Caller News Foundation) — President Joe Biden has completed his sixth quarter in office with a historically low average approval rating of 40%, according to a Friday Gallup poll.
This average represents the lowest sixth-quarter (which spans April 20 to July 19) results for a first-term president, and comes on the back of a July poll by Gallup which found Biden’s approval had fallen to 38% that month. Biden’s approval amongst independents fell to the lowest levels on record, with only 31% approving of his tenure, and his 78% approval among Democrats is tied for his lowest score with them, according to Gallup.
These results come as a USA TODAY/Suffolk University poll finds that 50% of Democrat voters would prefer a presidential candidate other than Biden in 2024.
It would be extremely unusual for Biden to make significant gains in the seventh quarter, as the only president to do so was President George H. W. Bush, according to Gallup.
Biden’s approval amongst Republicans remains in the single digits at 5%, which is comparable to opposition-party approval among recent predecessors President Barack Obama and President Donald Trump, according to Gallup. 87% of Republicans and 43% of independents strongly disapprove of Biden’s tenure, while just 6% of Democrats strongly disapprove.
Overall, 69% of those polled either moderately or strongly disapproved of Biden’s tenure, according to Gallup. While Gallup does not always ask about the intensity of approval or disapproval, 87% represents the highest “strongly disapprove” rating by an opposition party on record.
Only 83% of Democrats strongly disapproved of Trump, while 81% strongly disapproved of President George W. Bush at the height of their disapproval, according to Gallup. In contrast, only 75% of Republicans strongly disapproved of Obama at the peak of their disapproval.
Gallup stressed that the question of intensity is not regularly asked, being asked six times during Trump’s term and only four times during Obama’s first term, so it is “unclear if a party group has ever held more strongly negative opinions of a president than Republicans now do of Biden.”
“I understand that they’ve got a tough job,” said 44 year-old independent Clifton Heard, who voted for Biden in 2020, speaking to The New York Times about the Biden administration. “He wasn’t prepared for the job”
The Gallup poll sampled 1,013 adults, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, and had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
The White House did not immediately respond to a Daily Caller News Foundation request for comment.
