WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Joe Biden averaged 42.2% job approval during his four years as president, the second lowest in Gallup polling history. Extreme political party differences characterized Biden’s job approval, as has increasingly been the case for presidents. Biden’s final job approval rating from a new Jan. 2-15 Gallup poll is 40%, which ranks toward the middle of final ratings for recent presidents.
Average Job Approval for Biden Only Better Than Trump’s
Biden’s average job approval rating for his term is just one percentage point higher than that of his predecessor, Donald Trump, who holds the record low. Before the past two presidents, Jimmy Carter and Harry Truman had the lowest averages for their presidencies.
In total, six presidents have averaged 50% or higher job approval, and eight were below that mark, including each of the past four -- Biden, Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush.
John Kennedy earned the highest average approval rating for his brief presidency, at 70.1%, with Dwight Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush above 60% during their tenures.
Final Monthly Approval Rating of 40% for Biden
Biden enjoyed solid ratings above 50% during the first six months of his presidency -- but once his public support declined about midway through his first year in office, it never recovered.
- The first drop in Biden’s approval ratings from the mid-50s to 50% came in July 2021 amid a rise in COVID-19 infections.
- Then, a September 2021 poll taken shortly after the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan found job approval for Biden dropping to 43%.
- Rising inflation, record-high numbers of unauthorized border crossings from Mexico, and international challenges in Ukraine and the Middle East kept Biden’s approval ratings in the low 40s or high 30s thereafter.
The low point for Biden was a 36% approval rating in July 2024. That survey was conducted after his poor performance in the first 2024 presidential candidate debate and completed mostly before he announced that he would drop out of the race amid mounting pressure from Democratic Party leaders for him to withdraw.
Gallup’s final monthly job approval rating for Biden, based on the Jan. 2-15 poll, is 40%.
During Biden’s first year in office, he averaged 48.9% job approval. Ratings from his second (41.0%), third (39.8%) and fourth (39.1%) years were generally similar to each other.
Although Biden’s full-term average is one of the lowest, five other presidents had lower job approval ratings in the final Gallup measure before they exited the White House. These include:
- Richard Nixon, who had a 24% approval rating in a poll taken days before he resigned amid the Watergate scandal
- Truman, Carter and George W. Bush, who left office during challenging economic times, international unrest, or both
- Trump, after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and during a surge in COVID-19 infections
All other presidents’ final job approval ratings were above 50%, with the exception of Lyndon Johnson, at 49%. Bill Clinton (66%) and Ronald Reagan (63%) are the only two who exceeded 60% approval in the final Gallup measure of their performance.
For some presidents -- particularly Nixon, Reagan and Obama -- how Americans think they will be viewed historically is more aligned with their last job approval rating than with their average term rating. This suggests that the initially poor retrospective evaluation of Biden’s presidency may improve and exceed those of some other presidents in the future.
Party Polarization in Biden Ratings Similar to That for Trump
Recent presidents’ job approval ratings have been suppressed because of especially low ratings among people who identify with the opposing party to the president. Biden averaged a meager 6% job approval rating from Republicans throughout his term, compared with 39% among independents and 85% among his fellow Democrats.
Democratic approval of Biden is largely similar to what prior presidents have received from their own party supporters, but his ratings from independents -- and especially Republicans -- are historically low.
In fact, Biden’s approval among Republicans is now the lowest, by one point, that a president has averaged from the opposition, falling below Trump’s 7% approval among Democrats. Biden’s average job approval among independents is two points higher than Trump’s 37% low.
Trump received slightly higher approval from Republicans than Biden did from Democrats during their terms, which results in Trump having the largest average partisan gap in approval -- 81 points, compared with 79 for Biden. No other president has had a partisan gap of more than 70 points.
Over time, partisan differences in presidential job approval ratings have increased dramatically. They ranged from 27 to 41 points for Presidents Eisenhower through Carter, compared with 50 points or more for Reagan and his successors (except for George H.W. Bush, who engendered less partisanship).
The larger partisan gaps in approval ratings seen in recent decades mainly reflect diminished support from the opposition party. Earlier presidents typically received approval ratings in the 30s or 40s from opposition-party supporters, but those fell to the 20s for Clinton and George W. Bush, to the teens for Obama, and to the single digits for Trump and Biden.
The past nine years -- including four during the Biden administration, four during the first Trump administration, and the last year of Obama’s presidency -- rank among the 11 most politically polarized years for presidential job approval. The only others were Obama’s and George W. Bush’s fourth years, when they sought reelection.
Bottom Line
Biden’s unpopularity put him at great risk of being voted out of office by Americans had he not decided to end his reelection bid last summer. Some of the prior one-term presidents turned back by voters had challenges similar to Biden's in terms of economic hardships (especially inflation) and international conflicts that their administrations struggled to address. In Americans’ evaluation of how the 46th president did his job, those issues evidently outweighed any legislative wins during Biden’s presidency, such as historic investments in infrastructure and climate change policy, as well as generally solid GDP growth, low unemployment and record highs in the stock market.
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