Joe Biden Gets Ominous Warning From Polls

President Joe Biden's popularity rating among Americans rings alarm bells for his 2024 campaign, as only Jimmy Carter fared worse in polling during his third year in the White House, according to Gallup.

According to the Washington, D.C.-based management consulting company, during his third full year in office, between January 20, 2023 and January 19, 2024, an average of 39.8 percent of Americans approved of the president's job performance.

That makes Biden's third-year approval average the second worst after that of Carter among presidents elected since the 1950s. Carter had an approval rating of 37.4 percent in his third year between January 20, 1979 and January 19, 1980, based on a total of 24 polls, while Biden's results were based on 12 polls.

Biden's popularity hovered above the 50 percent mark during the first six months of his presidency only to start dropping dramatically through August and September 2021 following the chaos surrounding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan and the emergence of the COVID-19 Delta variant.

Since then, Biden's approval rate has remained firmly under the 50 percent mark while the number of Americans disapproving of the job he's doing has consistently been the majority, a result which could threaten the incumbent's run for reelection on November 5. Crucially, Carter did not win reelection on November 4, 1980, losing to Republican Ronald Reagan.

But the country was in a greatly different situation in 1979 and 1980 than it was in 2023 and now in 2024.

In 1979, the U.S. faced soaring gas prices while inflation reached double digits and Iranian militants took American citizens hostage.

Gas prices, which peaked at a record average price of $5.016 nationwide in June 2022 according to the American Automobile Association (AAA), have returned to reasonable levels in the past year. In January, the national average price hovered around the $3 mark, as per the AAA. Inflation also appears to have been tamed, as the Federal Reserve announced in December that it would stop its aggressive rate hike campaign and would soon start cutting interest rates.

Biden's unpopularity among Americans is a bit of a puzzle, as there seems to be a mismatch between voters' impression of how the country is faring and the actual state of the economy.

According to a recent poll by the Pew Research Center, only 28 percent of voters think the country's economy is in excellent or good condition, though the number was up by 9 percentage points compared to April. Despite inflation having slowed significantly in the past year, 72 percent of Americans are "very concerned" about the price of food and consumer goods, according to the Pew poll, 64 percent worry about the price of housing and 51 percent about the price of gas and energy.

But the U.S. economy is actually faring much better than most Americans think.

Last year, inflation cooled and the country avoided a recession that was very much expected by many observers. Unemployment remained low and the economy continued to grow, with the Commerce Department reporting on Thursday that U.S. gross domestic product, adjusted for inflation, grew at a 3.3 percent annual rate during the fourth quarter of 2023. While that was down from 4.9 percent in the previous quarter, the growth in Q4 was still above expectations.

"Economic growth is stronger than we had during the Trump administration," Biden said on Thursday in Wisconsin, one of the key swing states in the November election.

Newsweek contacted the White House and Gallup for comment by email on Friday morning.

Gallup doesn't exclude the possibility that Biden might win the 2024 election anyway, as others before him have gone on to get a second term in the White House after having a popularity rate lower than 50 percent in their third year in office.

"While some presidents have seen sharp improvements in their fourth year and won a second term, Biden's third-year rating was worse than any of theirs, suggesting he has a bigger hill to climb," the company wrote.

"The president may see some modest gains in approval if the Democrats who disapprove of him come back into the fold," Gallup wrote. "However, the key to Biden's winning reelection may lie more in convincing a larger share of independents that he is doing a good job and is deserving of a second term."

Biden's approval rating among independents has mostly been below 40 percent since late 2021 but was above 50 percent during his first months in the White House.

Other presidents who faced a popularity rating of below 50 percent during their third year in office, according to Gallup, include Donald Trump (42.0 percent between January 20, 2019 and January 19, 2020), Barack Obama (44.5 percent between January 20, 2011 and January 19, 2012), Reagan (44.9 percent between January 20, 1983 and January 19, 1984), Bill Clinton (47.5 percent between January 20, 1995 and January 19, 1996) and Richard Nixon (49.6 percent between January 20, 1971 and January 19, 1972).