Biden’s approval rating tumbles further

President Joe Biden continues to alienate voters with his job performance, and a new poll shows that even among those Americans who give him a thumbs-up, less than half say they “strongly approve.”

A Trafalgar Group poll, which was conducted in the last week of November and released on Wednesday, found that 36.3% of Americans approve of Biden’s job performance, against 59.1% who disapprove. That result compared with a 39.6% approval rating when the same researcher polled likely voters in early October.

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The survey also showed that even respondents who favor the president are apparently losing their enthusiasm. Just 18.1% of Americans “strongly approve” of how Biden is handling his job, down from 23.5% in October. 

And while overall disapprovals are running nearly 23 percentage points ahead of approvals, the gap is even wider among those who feel strongly about him. Trafalgar said 52.2% of Americans “strongly disapprove” of Biden’s performance, giving the vehement down-votes a winning margin of more than 34 percentage points.

To put that deficit in perspective, it should be noted that Biden had approval ratings of around 60% during the first few months of his presidency. But that was before a chaotic and deadly US withdrawal from Afghanistan, a surge in inflation to a 30-year high, and growing concerns over an illegal immigration crisis. Another earlier poll also showed Biden turned off some voters – particularly black Americans – when he imposed sweeping Covid-19 vaccine mandates that have been repeatedly challenged in federal courts.

A Gallup poll released in October indicated that Biden was the most disappointing new president – suffering the biggest decline in approval ratings – since Harry Truman took over for his deceased predecessor, Franklin Roosevelt, in 1945.

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That latest Trafalgar survey found that 51.2% of independents and nearly 25% of Democrats now strongly disapprove of Biden’s performance. Fewer than 3 in 10 independents approve of Biden’s handling of the presidency, while 62.1% disapprove.

The Trafalgar poll is weighted to Democrats (39.3% of respondents, versus 35.6% Republicans) and women (53.3% versus 46.7% men). A separate Trafalgar survey that was released on Tuesday showed that 54.2% of voters believe that Biden is responsible for divisions among the American people. Democrats and Republicans were predictably polarized on the issue, but 64.1% of independents blamed the president for the divisions.

Also last month, Trafalgar found that 52% of Americans believe that Biden’s signature legislative initiative, the “Build Back Better” bill, will hinder the nation’s economic recovery. Only 38.3% said the plan will actually help.

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