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BIDEN’S POPULARITY AT 100 DAYS. Thursday will mark President Joe Biden’s 100th day in office. According to a set of new polls, he is more popular than President Donald Trump was at the same time in his term, but less popular than almost every other president since World War II.
The polls show Biden’s job approval bouncing around in a narrow range between 51 percent and 54 percent. He is at 51 percent in the Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 52 percent in the Washington Post/ABC poll, and 54 percent in the Fox News poll. The latest RealClearPolitics average of those polls and others shows Biden’s approval rating at 53 percent.
That is significantly better than Trump’s 43 percent approval rating in the RCP average at his 100-day mark.
But it’s not very good compared to other presidents. The Washington Post, using its finding of 52 percent approval, compared Biden’s 100-day rating to presidents going back to Harry Truman. Biden’s rating is lower than Barack Obama’s 69 percent. Lower than George W. Bush’s 63 percent. Lower than Bill Clinton’s 59 percent. Lower than George H.W. Bush’s 71 percent. Lower than Ronald Reagan’s 73 percent. Lower than Jimmy Carter’s 63 percent.
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Biden’s rating is higher than Gerald Ford’s 48 percent rating, which is not terribly surprising, given that the unelected Ford followed Richard Nixon’s resignation in Watergate.
Biden’s 52 percent rating is also lower than Nixon’s 100-day 61 percent. Lower than Lyndon Johnson’s 79 percent. Lower than John F. Kennedy’s 83 percent. Lower than Dwight D. Eisenhower’s 73 percent. And lower than Harry Truman’s 87 percent. Here is the entire list, from the Post poll:
In other words, taking into account Trump, who was under media assault beginning before he took office and never hit 50 percent popularity in the RCP average at any time as president, and Gerald Ford, who took over after the Watergate disaster, Biden has the third-lowest job approval at 100 days of any president since the modern polling era began around World War II.
Why are Biden’s numbers so lackluster relative to other presidents? Probably two reasons. First, when the country was divided in the past — as it often was — a new president usually still had a honeymoon before the divisions took their toll on his approval rating. Now, the country is again divided, but those divisions have shown up from the very beginning in Biden’s job approval rating.
Second, Americans realize that Biden’s agenda is deeply divisive. The president is popular when he takes on the COVID pandemic — in the Washington Post poll, he got a 64 percent approval rating for his handling of the crisis. The giant $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill (which Republicans correctly noted covered a lot more than pandemic relief) was also popular. But now Biden is moving into more divisive areas.
His infrastructure plan, which should unite the parties, is instead an ultra-expensive collection of non-infrastructure Democratic priorities and is funded by massive tax increases. From there, Biden might move on to some sort of immigration proposal, which is sure to be divisive; some sort of national health care proposal, which is sure to be divisive; and some sort of climate change measure, which is sure to be divisive; and more. In addition, Biden has established a commission to study packing the Supreme Court, which is even more divisive.
Is it any surprise, then, that Biden’s 100-day numbers are not terribly impressive?
For some supporters, all that seems to matter is that Biden’s approval is higher than Trump’s. Give him that. But those same supporters have hailed Biden’s arrival in the White House as a “return to normalcy” after Trump. And by normal standards, his is not a very encouraging start.
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