According to FiveThirtyEight’s tracker, Biden’s average approval rating now stands at 41 percent, up from his lowest score in office of 37.5 percent recorded on July 20 amid decades-high levels of inflation and record-breaking gas prices.
The last time Biden’s approval rating was at 41 percent was on June 1, with his current score the joint highest average score since it reached 41.1 percent on May 23.
While still way down from the low to mid-50s he was recording in the first several months of his presidency, Biden’s approval ratings now rising from an all-time low is a much-needed step in the right direction for him and his party ahead of the upcoming midterms.
The Democrats are predicted to lose a large number of seats in November’s elections—as what usually happens to the ruling party in their first midterm.
Biden’s poor approval ratings showed Democrats could be heading towards a particularly crushing defeat and loss of control of both the Senate and the House to the GOP.
The midterms will also play out as a referendum on Biden and his administration, and a sign of voters’ frame of mind ahead of the next presidential election in 2024.
Thomas Gift, founding director of University College London’s Centre on US Politics, said that Biden’s recent “political wins,” such as the signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, gas prices now falling, as well as the killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, means the president now has “more to boast about” than he did this summer, which is being reflected in the polls.
“Even so, approvals in the low forties still aren’t anything to write home about,” Gift told Newsweek. “Biden is still roughly a dozen percentage points under water from where he started his term, and with time running out between now and the midterms, the White House isn’t exactly buoying the prospects of Democrats running for Congress.
“Biden has certainly stopped the bleeding, but it’s too early to tell whether this is just a short-term blip or a more sustained improvement in his favorabilities,” Gift said.
In comparison, Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump’s approval rating was slightly higher during the same period, with the Republican’s average approval rating standing at 42.1 percent on August 22, 2018, ahead of that year’s midterms.
The Democrats went on to retake control of the House in the 2018 midterms, with Republicans retaining the Senate.