CNN and other media outlets had a big freakout Thursday over something Civiqs tracking has been telling us for months: President Joe Biden’s job approval rating sits at 39%—which is not great. But also, it’s not exactly news. Civiqs tracking has had Biden’s approvals hovering at roughly 39% for about a year. In fact, when Democrats avoided the vaunted “red wave” last November, Biden had exactly the same Civiqs approvals on Election Day as he has now: 39% approve, 53% disapprove.
To add context, CNN polling director David Chalian pulled up comparable numbers for previous presidents at this juncture in their tenure, which is a perfectly reasonable exercise. Biden, he said, was in a “danger zone,” sandwiched between Donald Trump at 40% and Jimmy Carter at 32%, neither of whom won a second term.
The comparison could be valid … or not. Time will tell. But measuring any current president in this post-Trump era of extreme polarization against any pre-Trump era president is arguably a fool’s errand—as the media’s hyperbolic and ultimately incorrect coverage of the midterms proved to be.
In Civiqs polling, it’s also worth remembering respondents can choose “neither approve nor disapprove” as an option, which is where 8% of registered voters currently sit. So Biden’s approval would likely be several points higher if the tracker required people to make a binary choice, as most pollsters do.
But if analysts are freaking out about Biden’s approvals, then we should at least take a look at the current favorable ratings of his top five potential Republican rivals next year. A favorable rating is a slightly easier test than a job approval rating, but Civiqs has them for every candidate in question. And frankly, even if one compares the president’s approvals to GOP favorables, Biden still looks good.
Donald Trump: 36% favorable, 58% unfavorable
Ron DeSantis: 33% favorable, 57% unfavorable
Nikki Haley: 25% favorable, 53% unfavorable
Vivek Ramaswamy: 25% favorable, 43% unfavorable
Mike Pence: 14% favorable, 76% unfavorable
And finally, Joe Biden: 42% favorable, 53% unfavorable
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