Approval Ups and Downs

I  recently came across an interesting summary of net approval ratings on Day 1,125 for Presidents going back as far as Harry Truman during their first elected terms.

Day 1,125 for Biden was February 19, 2024.

The net approval rating subtracts those who disapprove from those who approve of the President.

The data is from @FiveThirtyEight.

FiveThirtyEight obviously put the comparison together to show just how precarious the political position of Joe Biden is right now.

Of those with negative ratings at this point in their terms, H.W. Bush lost, Trump lost and Truman did not run. LBJ was essentially even in his approval rating but he dropped out of the 1968 race about a month after this poll was taken.

All of the others with positive ratings at this point in their terms won re-election with the exception of Jimmy Carter.

The Carter number above took me by surprise. I did not remember Jimmy Carter having an approval rating that high that late in his Presidency.

The Jimmy Carter Presidency has many parallels with what we have witnessed with the Biden years.

Carter came into office with high hopes and a positive approval rating with the promise that he was going to bring the country together after the turmoil of Watergate. Sound familiar? Turmoil of Trump and Covid?

Soon after being sworn in his net approval was +75%.

Over the summer of 1977 allegations of improprieties involving his close friend and adviser, Bert Lance, surfaced and damaged Carter's standing with the public until Lance had to resign his position as Director of OMB. Carter also had to deal with fallout surrounding his colorful brother Billy amid allegations he had received $200,000 for Libya for unclear reasons. Sound familiar? Hunter?

Inflation took off during the Carter years that required the Federal Reserve to drastically hike interest rates. Sound familiar? Do I need to say more?

Russia invaded Afghanistan that put us in a proxy war with the Russians as we supplied weapons to the Afghan resistance fighters. Carter sanctioned Russia including not allowing the United States to participate in the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. Sound familiar? Ukraine?

There was an Islamic Revolution in Iran which ousted the Shah of Iran who was a close ally of the United States. Soon after, the U.S. Embassy was stormed by the Islamists taking 66 U.S. embassy personnel as hostages. A U.S.military operation to rescue the hostages in April, 1980 ended in total disaster with the deaths of 8 U.S. soldiers. The hostages were not released until Reagan was President. Sound familiar? Middle East unrest? Israeli hostages held by Hamas? Disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan?

The reality is that Carter's approval rating was on a steady decline throughout his Presidency much like Biden's has been. 

It just so happened that Carter received a short term boost in response to the taking of the Iranian hostages and the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the Winter of 1980.

However, that boost in approval was short-lived and Carter went on to lose the 1980 election to Ronald Reagan winning only six states and collecting a mere 49 electoral votes.

You can see the complete picture of Carter's approval rating during his four years below.

Source: https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/statistics/data/jimmy-carter-public-approval

Although less pronounced, you see a similar pattern with Biden in the @FiveThirtyEight composite approval average.

Biden started with a net approval of +23.4%

He is now at -18.0%. ( Biden's approval rating is even lower today than on Day 1,125)

That is very close to where Carter's approval rating was on Election Day, 1980.

Source: https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/approval/joe-biden/

What are the key takeaways here?

Joe Biden is in serious trouble with the American electorate right now.

If the election was held today he would lose.

However, it is still eight months until Election Day.

A lot can happen in eight months to cause his Presidential approval to go up or down. That is very clear in looking at the Jimmy Carter data.

Many times the approval rating is impacted by external events that no one can predict.

Who knows what lies ahead for both Biden and Trump over the next eight months?

Hunter Biden? The Trump trials?

We have never had a Presidential race shaping up with two candidates that were this old. Health issues?

Both Trump (age 78) and Biden (age 82) would be older when the next Presidential terms begins than the age at which Reagan left office (age 77) as the oldest previous President. When Biden began his term he was already older than Reagan was when he left.

What is going to happen in Ukraine over the next few months?

What about Israel, Hamas and the Middle East?

Will the chaos at the southern border continue?

What will happen with the economy, the stock market and interest rates over the next eight months?

There are a lot of unknowns about these known issues.

Of course, there are additional unknowns lurking right now with new and emerging issues that are not on anyone's radar currently. Unknowns within unknown future issues.

The candidates in November may be set as of right now with Super Tuesday behind us.

How those candidates are going to be perceived by the voters and what the political landscape will look like in November is far from certain.