This is a big week for President Joe Biden. For months, he’s had the second-worst approval rating of any polling-era president at the same point in their presidencies, trailing only Donald Trump. This week, he has passed Jimmy Carter, moving up into third worst. Within the next month, he’ll likely move ahead of Gerald Ford as well.
Yes, those are three of the four sitting presidents (along with George H.W. Bush) to lose a presidential election during the polling era. So maybe not that big a week.
Biden began his presidency with a period of unusual approval stability, and he may have entered into a second such stretch this year. His approval rating was at 41.9% on Jan. 20, marking the end of his first year in office. It’s at 41.8%, as I write this, and he’s been within a percentage point of where he is now on almost every day over the last three months. That Jan. 20 date also marked the peak of the omicron wave.
.png?w=600)
