President Joe Biden will leave the political stage next month after a decades-long career, and he’s set to do so at a historic low.
Biden, who was first elected to the Senate more than 50 years ago in 1972, will make his final exit from politics on January 20, when he hands the presidency back to his biggest rival, Donald Trump.
When Trump left the White House for the first time in 2021, it was with the lowest approval numbers seen in nearly 30 years. It had been just two weeks since his supporters stormed the Capitol—a riot that prompted even members of his own party to denounce Trump for his role in stoking the outrage that fueled the attack. On track to be a one-term president, Trump’s approval numbers were 43 percent when he last left office.
But Trump would go on to make one of the biggest political comebacks just four years later, taking back the White House at the height of his popularity.
Biden, on the other hand, has suffered the other end of that fate. With just 37 percent of Americans approving of his job as president, Biden is facing a record low rating, Gallup’s Presidential Job Approval Center shows.
Newsweek reached out to the White House via email for comment.
Even though the figures are still slightly above Trump’s at the time that the Republican left office in 2021, Trump’s approval rating on this day four years ago was 44 percent. If Biden’s numbers continue to trend down, he’ll leave with the lowest approval rating of every recent one-term president since Jimmy Carter, who left the White House on 31 percent.
Polls released earlier this month paint a similar picture.
Just 35 percent of Americans said they approved of Biden in a Monmouth poll conducted from December 5 to 10. The poll, which surveyed 1,006 respondents and had a margin of error of +/-3.9 percentage points, showed Biden’s rating to be nearly identical to his prior low mark of 34 percent a year ago.
An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey conducted December 5 to 9 had Biden up slightly with 39 percent approval, while a Marist poll conducted from December 3 to 5 showed Biden at 40 percent. The AP-NORC poll sampled 1,251 adults and had a margin of error of +/-3.7 points. The Marist poll sampled 3,131 adults and had a margin of error of +/-2.1 points.
Biden’s approval ratings have remained underwater for the majority of his presidency. Although there were more Americans who approved of Biden than those who disapproved when he was first sworn in January 2021, that figure dipped six months into his presidency as a response to his handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. His numbers never fully recovered.
Earlier this month, Biden shocked many when he issued a sweeping pardon for his son Hunter, who he said was being “selectively, and unfairly, prosecuted” solely for the reason that “he is my son.” The move, which came in the final weeks of Biden’s presidency, marked a major reversal from the position that he and the White House have taken over the past four years.
The clemency action was widely disapproved by the public. The Marist poll found that nearly 60 percent of American’s disapproved of the pardon. Many critics of Biden’s decision have warned that the move shows his willingness to put his family above the American people, further undermining his legacy.
Even though Biden became president on the promise to unify an increasingly polarized country, Monmouth’s December 12 poll found that he was only able to fulfill that vow with some Americans. Pollsters found that 67 percent think the nation is more divided after Biden’s term, compared to 70 percent who said the same at the end of Trump’s term.
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