A new poll published on Friday revealed a substantial gain in approval rating for Biden, who went into the midterm elections with a dismally low 41% approval rating in late October.
According to the survey, conducted and published by CNN, 46% of those surveyed said they approved of the job Biden was doing as head of state, two years into his four-year term. The news agency’s polling hasn’t found that high of an approval rating for Biden since a year ago in December 2021, when 49% of those asked said they approved of his presidency.
The survey was conducted from December 1 through December 7 and polled 1,208 American voters. It has a margin of error of 3.5%.
With regards to specifics, 36% of respondents said they approved of Biden’s handling of economic issues and 33% said they approved of his handling of inflation. Half of those polled said they approved of Biden “protecting democracy in America,” and half also said they approved of his handling of the Ukrainian crisis.
On wider issues, just 35% of respondents said they thought things were “going well” in the United States, with 65% saying things were going “badly.” Those numbers reflect a 9% shift toward the positive as compared to the October poll.
In the midterm elections on November 8, the Democrats held onto the Senate but narrowly lost the US House of Representatives. However, with a “red wave” of Republican victories having been widely anticipated, the results were paraded by the Democrats as a victory of sorts. Friday’s poll suggests that perspective has been somewhat assimilated by his party.
The more positive view of Biden may also be due to the comparative chaos of the Republican Party, where infighting has frustrated its ability to capitalize on political gains made in the election. The leading Republican in the House, Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, has so far been unable to rally enough of his party to support his bid to be House Speaker, amid a revolt by a Trump-aligned faction.
Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who handily won reelection in November and is widely seen as a potential challenger to Trump for the Republicans’ 2024 presidential nomination, have sparred since the election, too, as have their supporters. Trump has in part been blamed by the GOP for their election losses, since his endorsements helped elevate many candidates that later lost to Democrats.
Trump’s reputation has further been damaged among Republicans by appearing with white supremacist figure Nick Fuentes and the rapper Ye, who has drawn wide condemnation for his antisemitic and pro-Nazi remarks.
As a result, DeSantis has edged ahead of Trump in the most recent polls about 2024 candidate preferences, although the Florida head of state has still yet to garner even a majority of Republicans in any poll.
However, an image of Democratic stability might have been shattered on Friday when US Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona announced she was leaving the Democratic Party and becoming an Independent. The move makes her the third Independent in the Senate, and while she is likely to still largely vote with the Democrats, their thin majority in the upper chamber has now become even less stable than before.