Joe Biden's Approval Rating Hits New Low as President's Agenda Suffers Roadblocks

Joe Biden's approval rating is falling as the first anniversary of his presidency approaches. It's currently nearing levels similar to those experienced by former President Donald Trump at the same point in his presidency.

For the past three months, Biden's approval rating has been around 40%. Currently, about 42% of Americans approve of his job performance while 51% disapprove of it.

Biden's approval rating plummets ahead his 1st year in office

After one year in office, Biden has the second-lowest approval rating of any president. Only Trump was able to get a lower number. Biden's approval rating has consistently been in the low 40s whereas Trump's has consistently been in the upper 30s. Trump's approval rating was 39 percent after nearly a year in office, up from the first-year low of 36 percent on December 15, 2017.

Most new presidents have a high initial approval rating, which gradually declines over time. When President Barack Obama took office on January 20, 2009, he had a 68 percent approval rating. Biden received 53 percent of the vote. Obama's approval rating has dropped below 50% after a year in office.

According to The Independent, following the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush's popularity rating skyrocketed, rising from 52 percent on September 10 to 88 percent a month later.

Manchin almost doubles Biden's approval

Senator Joe Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat, has sparked outrage and frustration among Democrats for opposing President Joe Biden's Build Back Better Act and ruling out amendments to the filibuster to address voting rights. However, polling in Manchin's home state indicates that he is acting in the best interests of his constituents.

Manchin, a centrist, has consistently emerged as a significant force within the Democratic Party who has stymied parts of Biden's plan. With a Senate that is equally split, it just takes one Democratic senator to make or break the prospect of partisan goals passing in Congress. While the West Virginia legislator has received harsh criticism from the White House and fellow Democrats in Congress, recent polling indicates that his constituents are satisfied.

Notably, Manchin is a Democrat in a state that has largely supported Republican presidential candidates since 2000. In 2016, former President Donald Trump won West Virginia by more than 30 percentage points, and in 2020, he won by over 30 percentage points. Meanwhile, Manchin was re-elected in 2018 with a margin of slightly over 3%, as per Newsweek via MSN.

Biden is disappointed with failures in his agenda

Per Daily Mail, President Joe Biden acknowledged that his agenda was paused with the failure of his voting rights initiative, but he vowed that he would still get things done as he unveiled plans to spend $27 billion to repair thousands of bridges around the country.

After Republicans chastised him for his controversial address on voting rights in Atlanta on Tuesday, he maintained that he was elected to unify the country. The President questioned if Americans wanted to support Martin Luther King and John Lewis or Bill Connor, George Wallace, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

His speech came at the end of a week in which his approval rating dropped to 33% in a Quinnipiac poll, his vaccine mandate for private employers was struck down by the Supreme Court, and his attempt to push voting rights legislation through Congress was thwarted by Democratic Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema's refusal to budge on the filibuster.

As he approaches the one-year anniversary of his inauguration, Biden returned to the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill he signed 60 days ago, promising to jumpstart his agenda. Biden also mentioned community initiatives to upgrade highways, ports, and airports, as well as to extend internet, replace lead pipes, and cover abandoned wells.