With President Joe Biden and his predecessor Donald Trump all but certain to face off in the 2024 election, predicting the potential outcome has proven challenging. Drawing inference from historical trends, poll results released Friday provided a hint at what could come to pass.
Biden’s Chances: Biden had a 38.7% average job approval rating in his 13th quarter in office, the lowest among the nine past presidents elected to the their first terms, said Gallup. The analytics firm noted that none of the other nine presidents elected to their first term since Dwight Eisenhower (1956) had lower rating than Biden.
The results were based on Gallup's latest poll conducted April 1-22.
The previous lowest 13th quarter average approval rating was held by George H.W. Bush with a score of 41.8%.
Biden's immediate predecessors, Trump and Barack Obama, averaged 46.8% and 45.9% job approval, respectively, at the same point in their presidencies. The only other president who had a sub-50% job approval rating in the 13th quarter was Jimmy Carter.
Gallup noted that three of the four prior presidents who had 13th-quarter approval averages below 50% lost their reelection bids, with Obama being the exception. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush had averages between 51% and 55%, while Eisenhower, had the highest average (73.2%) for a president at this stage of the presidency.
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On Downhill: The 13th-quarter rating is the lowest of Biden’s presidency to date, only slightly lower than the previous quarter's 39%.Biden averaged over 50% approval during his first two quarters in office, but since then, the readings have hovered around 40%.
According to the poll, Biden’s standing was very weak among Republicans, with just 2% GOP voters approving his job as president. It was also weak among independents (at 33%), although 83% of Democrats continued to evaluate Biden's performance positively.
“With about six months remaining before Election Day, Biden stands in a weaker position than any prior incumbent, and thus faces a taller task than they did in getting reelected,” Gallup said.
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