Joe Biden averaged 42.2% job approval during his four years as president, the second lowest in Gallup polling history. Extreme political party differences characterized Biden’s job approval, as has increasingly been the case for presidents. Biden’s final job approval rating from a new Jan. 2-15 Gallup poll is 40%, which ranks toward the middle of final ratings for recent presidents.
Biden’s average job approval rating for his term is just one percentage point higher than that of his predecessor, Donald Trump, who holds the record low. Before the past two presidents, Jimmy Carter and Harry Truman had the lowest averages for their presidencies.
In total, six presidents have averaged 50% or higher job approval, and eight were below that mark, including each of the past four — Biden, Trump, Barack Obama and George W. Bush.
John Kennedy earned the highest average approval rating for his brief presidency, at 70.1%, with Dwight Eisenhower and George H.W. Bush above 60% during their tenures.
During Biden’s first year in office, he averaged 48.9% job approval. Ratings from his second (41.0%), third (39.8%) and fourth (39.1%) years were generally similar to each other.
Although Biden’s full-term average is one of the lowest, five other presidents had lower job approval ratings in the final Gallup measure before they exited the White House. These include:
- Richard Nixon, who had a 24% approval rating in a poll taken days before he resigned amid the Watergate scandal
- Truman, Carter and George W. Bush, who left office during challenging economic times, international unrest, or both
- Trump, after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol and during a surge in COVID-19 infections
The past nine years — including four during the Biden administration, four during the first Trump administration, and the last year of Obama’s presidency — rank among the 11 most politically polarized years for presidential job approval. The only others were Obama’s and George W. Bush’s fourth years, when they sought reelection.
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