Biden approval rating falls below 50% for first time in his presidency, polling shows

President Joe Biden’s approval rating dropped below 50% this week for the first time during his presidency.

The decline coincides with the fall of the Afghan government to the Taliban two weeks ahead of Biden’s imposed deadline to have all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan and with a continued surge in COVID-19 cases as the highly contagious delta variant spreads rapidly throughout the country.

But Biden’s approval rating is still higher than his average disapproval rating and remains higher than — or around the same as — recent former presidents during the same point in their terms, according to data from poll analysis site FiveThirtyEight.