New Delhi: US President Joe Biden’s approval ratings, which have been taking a beating amid the pandemic and the Afghanistan situation, further dropped this week as more Americans marked their “strong disapproval”.
According to Real Clear Politics polling data Tuesday, 48.9 per cent of Americans disapprove of Biden’s job performance, while 46.6 per cent approve of the way he is handling his job as president. Only last week, polls saw Biden’s approval ratings dip below 50 per cent for the first time after he took office eight months ago.
The fall is widely attributed to what’s happening in Afghanistan and the Biden administration’s failure to prevent the return of the Covid-19 spike, fueled by the Delta variant of the coronavirus.
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The dip in Biden’s popularity was also recorded in several other polls earlier this week. USA Today Sunday pegged Biden’s approval ratings at 41 per cent and disapproval at 55 per cent while Reuters/Ipsos puts it at 46 per cent and 49 per cent, respectively.
An NBC News poll found that 49 per cent of Americans strongly approved of the job Biden is doing while 48 per cent disapproved.
The rise in Biden’s disapproval scores comes almost a week after his approval ratings first dropped to 49.9 per cent on 19 August. They further declined to 49.3 per cent — according to the FiveThirtyEight polling averages, and 49.6 per cent — according to RealClearPolitics. His disapproval ratings were at 44.5 per cent and 47.2 per cent respectively.
However, according to FiveThirtyEight polls, Biden’s approval ratings are still ten times higher than that of Trump’s, whose approval ratings on the 217th day in office stood at 36.9 per cent against Biden’s 47.6 per cent, and disapproval at 57.2 per cent against Biden’s 47.0 per cent.
(Edited by Manasa Mohan)
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