President Joe Biden's approval rating as he leaves office matches the lowest level of his presidency, according to a poll released by CNN on Wednesday.
Only 36% of American adults said they are supportive "of the way Joe Biden is handling his job as president," matching the mark he received in June of last year that is the lowest of his presidency in polling by CNN.
There was plenty of other bad news for Biden, the survey showed:
- Biden's approval on many specific topics had an even lower rating than his overall one. For example, his performance on immigration had 31% approval, foreign affairs was at 32%, and the economy was at 33%.
- Even the topics in which he received his strongest approval ratings are less than half, as 46% approved of the way in which he protected American democracy, 44% approved of his handling of environmental policy, and 43% approved of how he dealt with healthcare policies.
- Biden's favorability rating, which is a measure of personal feelings rather than job performance, stands at 33% favorable to 58% unfavorable. This is just 1 point off his previous low in CNN polling since he became vice president under Barack Obama in 2009 (he reached that 32% in June 2023).
- Most Americans, 61%, said they viewed Biden's presidency as a failure overall, with 38% viewing it as a success. Those results are far behind two presidencies largely seen as successful: Bill Clinton's (68% considered it a success in 2000) and Barack Obama's (65% rated it a success in early 2017).
The CNN poll was carried out by SSRS from Jan. 9-12 among a random national sample of 1,205 adults. Surveys were conducted either online or by telephone with a live interviewer. Results among the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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