Slightly more than 40% of Americans approved of President Joe Biden during his fifth quarter in office, a Gallup poll released Friday revealed.
Between January 20 and April 19, an average of 41.3% of American adults “approved of the job he was doing as president,” according to Gallup. “The latest average is essentially unchanged from the 41.7% in his fourth quarter but significantly lower than his first three quarterly averages.”
Gallup noted that the dismal polling in recent months follows “a trying late summer and early fall 2021” — especially the botched Afghanistan withdrawal and surging inflation. With the exception of President Donald Trump, no former commander-in-chief in modern history has performed worse in the fifth quarter of his administration than Biden.
Meanwhile, a Gallup survey conducted in the first half of April showed that 56% of Americans disapprove “of the way Biden is handling his job as president.”
The polling is likely a bad omen for the Democrats ahead of the midterm elections. “Typically, unpopular presidents’ parties have lost seats in midterm elections, with the number of seats lost usually much higher for presidents with job approval ratings below 50%,” Gallup explained. “While it is possible that Biden’s job approval could increase between now and the fall elections, doing so would go against the historical pattern for second-year presidents.”
“As things stand, given the strong link between presidential job approval ratings and how the president’s party performs in midterm elections, Biden appears likely to be governing with Republican majorities in one or both houses of Congress next year unless his rating dramatically improves,” Gallup continued.
Of particular concern for Democrats is plummeting support for demographics that were once firmly in the party’s corner.
A new nationwide poll by Quinnipiac released earlier in April puts Biden’s approval rating among Hispanics at just 26% — a drop from his 69% approval at the beginning of his term in office. Possible explanations include Hispanics’ concern over inflation and the border crisis.
“Biden’s handling of the border may yield the most surprising data coming out of border states such as Texas,” The Hill reported. “More than 50 percent of registered Latino voters there disapprove of the administration’s handling of the border. And as you may recall, Biden tapped Vice President Kamala Harris to handle the border crisis, but she has been almost entirely apathetic on this front.”
Hispanic voters are now almost evenly split in support between Democrats and Republicans, Fox News reported.
“Nothing has happened that was promised,” government and businesses consultant Bertica Cabrera Morris told Fox News Digital. “I think the country is more divided than normal. It was divided during Obama, then during Trump, and now again — it’s not going in the right direction. It’s not the right leader.”