President Joe Biden is officially one year into his presidency, but while his administration worked to combat COVID, inflation, and immigration challenges in 2021, American approval began to fall. Gallup polling reflects a 17 point drop in his approval rating from January 2021 to January 2022. According to Gallup’s polling, he entered office with 57 percent approval. It now sits at 40 percent.
Director of UMass Polls Natishe Nteta said the first year drop is often expected.
“In some ways, this is reflective of every president in the modern era. So every president comes into office on a high. This is the honeymoon period,” said Nteta. “And after that, about six month period, you do tend to see a decrease in levels of popularity.”
What Nteta describes is a trend observed during the presidencies of Donald Trump, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton. Trump’s approval rating dropped 9 percentage points in his first year. Obama’s dropped 18 percent, and Clinton’s dropped four percent.
An exception to this trend was George W. Bush. In the wake of September 11th, his approval rating jumped 29 percentage points in his first year.
Nteta said Bush’s jump shows how single events can have a big impact on a presidency and its approval ratings. But the ratings go both ways. Following America’s Afghanistan troop withdrawal in late August, Biden swiftly dropped six approval points. Since that time, he’s failed to surpass 43% approval.
“There are a lot of events which can explain why it is the President has experienced these lower approval numbers. And the question is going forward–whether or not he’s going to be able to bounce back,” Nteta said. “If he continues down this road, the likelihood is that we might be looking at a one term president.”