President Biden’s approval rating has fallen below 40% for the first time since he took office, an average of recent national polls show.
The Real Clear Politics average of all recent national surveys found that 39% of Americans approved of Mr. Biden’s job performance, while 52% disapproved and the rest were unsure.
Real Clear Politics averaged Mr. Biden’s approval rating from 304 polls taken between January 2021 and February 2022.
The polls also found that an average of 27.6% of Americans were satisfied with the direction the U.S. is heading, while 65.1% said it was heading in the wrong direction.
Mr. Biden’s approval rating was above 50% for his few months in office, but his popularity has plummeted since August following the bungled withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and surging COVID cases.
Other crises have also reduced Mr. Biden’s approval rating, including a 40-year inflation spike, a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine and the enduring coronavirus pandemic.
Mr. Biden’s popularity has now fallen below that of his predecessor, former President Donald Trump, whose approval rating sank to 40% in 2017, according to Real Clear Politics’ average of polls at the time.
