President Biden’s job approval number near all-time low

By Dave Andrusko

On Thursday, we wrote about how “New poll continues stretch of bad numbers for President Biden.” His job approval rating was dismal 41% while Vice President Kamala Harris’s was even bleaker– 36%–according to the Monmouth University survey.

His numbers were “stagnating.”

But if 41% was just five points higher than the lowest figure for President Biden (last June it bottomed out at 36%), that lasted one day: it was down to 38%. The new AP-NORC poll explained

Approval of President Joe Biden has dipped slightly since a month ago, nearing the lowest point of his presidency as his administration tries to project a sense of stability while confronting a pair of bank failures and inflation that remains stubbornly high.

That’s according to a new poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which shows there have been modest fluctuations in support for Biden over the past several months. The president notched an approval rating of 38% in the new poll, after 45% said they approved in February and 41% in January. His ratings hit their lowest point of his presidency last July, at 36%, as the full weight of rising gasoline, food and other costs began to hit U.S. households.

Writing for National Review Online, Charles C.W. Cooke examined the figures and concluded

Because commentators tend to be so obsessed with horse races, they sometimes have trouble distinguishing between issues and personalities, and, in my estimation, that’s exactly what’s happened here. In 2022, the Democrats did better than they had expected to do. They did not get rid of the political liabilities that had led them to be disfavored in the first instance. If the AP’s poll is correct, those liabilities — most notably inflation and the harsh remedies that it requires — are still with us, and Biden’s fate is still inextricably tied to them. Given the predictions for the near year, that would make me nervous if I were a Democrat.

Looking ahead the most telling number may be the response to the question which direction is the country headed—positive or negative? Monmouth found

The poll also finds only 22% of Americans say things in the country are going in the right direction while 72% say they have gotten off on the wrong track.

Stay tuned.