President Joe Biden‘s average net approval rating hit a new low this week, five months before the 2024 election.
Biden’s average approval equaled an administration low of 37.4% last weekend and on Wednesday, according to FiveThirtyEight. But his disapproval reached a new peak of 56.8% on Wednesday, leaving him with a net negative approval rating of 19.4 percentage points.
“Biden just hit a new all-time low in approval [37.4%) at 538,” FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver posted on social media Monday. “Dropping out would be a big risk. But there’s some threshold below which continuing to run is a bigger risk. Are we there yet? I don’t know. But it’s more than fair to ask.”
“What’s clearer IMO [in my opinion] is that Democrats would have been better served if Biden had decided a year ago not to seek a second term, which would have allowed them to have some semblance of a primary process and give voters a say among the many popular Democrats across the country,” Silver said.
Biden’s previous lowest net negative approval rating was 19.3 points on June 9 and 19.2 on March 12.
Biden’s approval was dragged down by a YouGov poll that was conducted June 9-11. That survey found Biden’s approval was 36% and disapproval was 59%, though FiveThirtyEight adjusted the research’s results to 36% approval and 60% disapproval.
But despite Biden’s high disapproval, FiveThirtyEight also found the president had a slight edge over former President Donald Trump in its election prognosticator tool’s first forecast of the cycle. FiveThirtyEight found that Biden won 53 out of 100 of its simulations against Trump on Tuesday, but that prediction had been downgraded to 52 out of 100 by Wednesday morning.
Regardless, Biden has projected confidence on the campaign trail, telling donors in Connecticut last week he and his administration have “made a lot of progress, and we can create even more progress, but we’ve got to keep it going.”
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“We’re building the biggest grassroots operation in the history of politics. Already, this is about grassroots, we have more than 2 million individuals, as of the end of May, 2 million individuals, roughly 90% of all contributors, who contributed less than $200. Two million. Two million,” Biden said.
“We’ve raised more money than any president has at this point because of people like you. But the point is it’s a groundswell. It’s all over America. Two million individual contributors,” he added. “And the polls are moving our way.”
