The coronavirus pandemic, for example, had been one of Biden’s best issues. He was trusted more than former President Donald Trump to handle it in poll after poll during last year’s election. Trump likely would have won in 2020 had people trusted him more.
Biden’s approval rating on the coronavirus had consistently been in the 60s for the first six months of his presidency. That declined to the high 50s in July and has been sunk to the 50s in the month of August.
Biden’s overall approval rating has declined at a similar rate to his coronavirus pandemic approval rating.
Biden’s also seen his numbers on the economy drop. During August, Biden’s average approval rating on the economy has been just 47%. That’s down from the 51% it averaged during the month of July.
Biden’s declining approval ratings on the coronavirus and economy has been punctuated by how Americans see him handling the troop withdrawal from Afghanistan.
In July, before the troop withdrawal, Biden averaged a 58% approval rating when it came to getting the troops out of Afghanistan.
Biden’s average approval rating on Afghanistan stands at a mere 34% today. You rarely see anything close to a 24-point drop on a president’s handling of an issue in such a short period of time.
The fact that three big issues are going against Biden at the same time makes it difficult to figure out what is driving his overall approval rating down. It’s probably all three to some degree.
Indeed, the entire mood of the country has taken a dive recently. Just 33% of the country say the country is going in the right direction in an average of recent polling.
The current 33% is much more like the readings we saw on this metric during the Trump administration.
The big question going forward is how do American minds change from here. An issue for Biden is that even when the last American troops leave Afghanistan that probably won’t change people’s perceptions on the coronavirus or the economy.
Still, the fact that Biden’s ratings have shifted as much as they have over the last month may be an indication that Biden’s once stable ratings are more susceptible to shifting around that was previously thought.
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