Newsweek, January 2025
As Joe Biden‘s presidency nears an end, his approval ratings have fallen to an all-time low. According to FiveThirtyEight’s analysis of polls, just 35.6 percent approval of Biden’s performance as of January 13, while 57.1 percent disapprove, giving him a net disapproval rating of 21.5 percent. Newsweek has contacted the White House for comment. Biden’s approval ratings have declined since the early months of his term, but the latest numbers are a sharp illustration of how tarnished his legacy has become. They put him at risk of leaving office with a lower approval rating than most presidents, including President-elect Donald Trump. Trump’s approval rating was 38.6 percent when he left office at the end of his first term in 2021, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Biden’s approval ratings had hovered above 50 percent in the first year of his presidency. But his approval ratings dropped and his disapproval ratings surged following the deadly and chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021. FiveThirtyEight’s tracker has not recorded his net approval as positive—that is, he has not been recorded as more popular than he is unpopular—since then. Over the past year, his approval ratings have suffered due to concerns about the economy, his handling of immigration and his support of Israel’s war against Hamas.
