President Joe Biden’s approval ratings have taken another dive, with a new poll showing barely three in ten Americans approve of his handling of the presidency.
The poll of more than 1,500 adults, conducted by Quinnipiac University between July 14-18, showed that just 31% of Americans approve of Biden’s job as president — a record low. The poll also showed that more than 7 in 10 Americans don’t want Biden to run for a second term in 2024, and even a majority of Democrats say they do not want Biden to run again.
Biden’s overall approval sunk to a new record low, 31%, with 60% disapproval. Biden’s base of strong support also sunk to a new low: just 15% of respondents said they strongly approved of Biden, while 16% said they somewhat approved. Americans who disapproved of Biden had much stronger feelings: 47% of survey respondents said they strongly disapproved of Biden, while 12% said they somewhat disapproved. Breaking the results down by party, Republicans overwhelmingly disapproved of Biden, 94%-2%, and fully two-thirds of Independents, 67%-23%, disapproved of him as well. Biden’s approval among his own party also slid: Democrats approved of Biden 71%-18%, down from 80%-12% in Quinnipiac’s June poll.
Biden’s approval on vital issues was also depressed. Just 28% of Americans approved of Biden’s handling of the economy, while two-thirds, 66%, disapproved. On foreign policy, 36% of respondents approved, while 55% disapproved. On the issue of gun violence, just 32% approved, while 61% disapproved. Biden fared slightly better on the issue of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but was still underwater, with 40% approval to 52% disapproval. The only issue he had a net positive approval rating on was the response to the COVID-19 pandemic: 50% of respondents approved of Biden’s handling of the COVID response, while 43% disapproved.
In addition to cratering approval ratings at this point in his term, Americans overwhelmingly said they did not want Biden to run for a second term. Asked, “[w]ould you like to see Joe Biden run for president in 2024, or not?” fully 7 in 10 Americans, 71%, said no, while just 24% said yes. Even a majority of Democrats, 54%, said they did not want Biden to run again, compared to 40% who did. At the same time, 64% of Americans said they did not want former President Trump to run again, but Trump was in much better standing with his own party: 69% of Republicans wanted Trump to run again, while 27% said they did not.
Trump also had a higher personal favorability rating than Biden. Among potential 2024 contenders tested by Quinnipiac, Trump scored the highest, with a 37% favorability rating, and a 55% unfavorability rating. Biden fell behind Trump, with a 35% favorability rating and a 58% unfavorability rating. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis scored a 31% favorability rating, with a 32% unfavorability, while 35% said they had not heard enough to give an opinion. Vice President Kamala Harris, meanwhile, scored an abysmal 26% favorability, with a 50% unfavorability.
The new low in Quinnipiac’s poll also sunk Biden to new record lows in polling averages. Biden hit the lowest mark of his presidency, 37.1% in the RealClearPolitics poll of polls, and 37.9% in FiveThirtyEight‘s aggregate polling data, also a new low as of Wednesday. The Quinnipiac poll comes just one day after Biden hit another new low of 38% in a CNN poll. The Quinnipiac poll is also just the latest poll to find Biden’s approval in the low 30s: A New York Times/Siena College poll released last week showed Biden’s approval at just 33%, while Civiqs‘ tracking poll has shown Biden’s approval at about 30% since June 30.