By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON – U.S. President Joe Biden’s public approval rating rose three percentage points this week to 39%, rebounding from a week earlier when it matched the lowest level of his presidency, a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll completed on Tuesday found.
The two-day national poll found that 55% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s job performance.
Biden’s approval rating has been below 50% since August 2021, raising alarms that his Democratic Party is on track to lose control of at least one chamber of Congress in the Nov. 8 midterm election.
Biden’s popularity this year has suffered from a surge in inflation, with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine helping drive fuel prices higher and global supply chains still hindered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Last week, his approval rating was 36%, matching the low point of his presidency reached in May.
On Friday, however, Biden welcomed an economic report that showed strong growth last month in the number of U.S. jobs, with the unemployment rate holding at 3.6%.
His approval rating within his own party rose this week to 74% from 69%. Only 12% of Republicans approve of his performance in office.
Biden’s lowest ratings have rivaled the lows of his predecessor, Donald Trump, whose popularity bottomed out at 33% in December 2017.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll is conducted online in English throughout the United States. The latest poll gathered responses from a total of 1,004 adults, including 418 Democrats and 365 Republicans. It has a credibility interval – a measure of precision – of four percentage points.
(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
