President Biden’s average job approval rating during his third year in office was the lowest of any U.S. president since President Carter, according to a new Gallup survey published Thursday.
During Biden’s third year – which extended from Jan. 20, 2023, to Jan. 19, 2024 – he had an average job approval rating of 39.8 percent in Gallup polls.
Biden, whose current job approval rating is 41 percent, fared the worst in polls of all presidents’ ratings since Carter, whose third-year polling average was 37.4 percent and who lost his reelection campaign. Carter’s third year in office included some historic low points, including the Iran hostage crisis, soaring gas prices and double-digit inflation.
Biden fared worse in his third year than former President Trump, whose average job approval in his third year was 42 percent.
In Biden’s first two years in office, his average approval was higher than Trump’s. Biden’s average approval in his first year was 48.9 percent, and in his second year, 41 percent.
In recent years, presidents have seen less fluctuation in their approval ratings, as the political environment has gotten more polarized. Democrats usually approve of their party’s president and usually disapprove of a Republican president, and the same is true in reverse.
The Gallup analysis makes this trend clear. During the average third-year job approval ratings of presidents since President Eisenhower, the average party gap was largest during Trump’s third year (82 points) and then during Biden’s third year (78 points).
Since Gallup began tracking in the 1950s, Biden had the highest average third-year approval among Democrats, at 83 percent, and the lowest on record among Republicans, at 5 percent.
Trump’s third-year average approval among Republicans was tied with the elder President Bush, at 89 percent, second to only Eisenhower, whose average GOP approval was at 91 percent. Trump’s average third-year approval among Democrats, however, similarly hit new lows, at 7 percent.
In The Hill/Decision Desk HQ’s national polling average of hypothetical Biden-Trump matchups in 2024, Trump leads by 2.2 percent, with 43.8 percent support followed by Biden’s 41.6 percent support.
