President Biden’s approval rating as president hit an all-time low this month, according to a Gallup poll conducted just before he announced he was dropping out of the 2024 presidential race.
In opinion polls, Released on TuesdayAccording to the poll, 36% of respondents approved of Biden’s handling of his role as president, while 58% disapproved.
The president’s announcement came after Democrats in both houses of Congress urged him to withdraw from the race and make way for someone to challenge former President Trump in November. The political backlash came after the sitting president’s poor debate performance raised concerns about his mental health and ability to serve another four terms.
“Serving as your president has been the greatest honor of my life, and while I intended to seek reelection, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and our country for me to step down and focus solely on fulfilling the duties of my presidency for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote in the letter on Sunday.
Before he announced he was dropping out of the race, the president’s approval rating was at its lowest of his time in office, according to Megan Brennan, a polling consultant at Gallup Inc. She added that his decision to step down could boost his approval rating in the long term.
“History suggests that his retreat from confidence that he can beat President Trump in November could lead to an improvement in his approval ratings in the coming months, and potentially a shift in how he is viewed as president in the future,” Brennan said in the survey.
Trump’s lowest approval rating to date was 37%, recorded in April 2023, according to a Gallup poll.
The only post-World War II president with a lower approval rating at this point in his term was former President Jimmy Carter, at 35.8 percent, and fellow one-term President George H. W. Bush, who polled for the same time, at 39.2 percent.
The Gallup poll was conducted July 1-21, with a sample size of 1,010 people and a margin of sampling error of 4 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level.
