New AP poll shows Biden approval dropped to 38 percent, nearly ties record low of 36 percent last July

By 
 March 25, 2023

President Joe Biden was beginning to enjoy some improvement in his job approval numbers to start the new year, but amid recent bank failures, persistent inflation, and an increasingly uncertain economy, the trajectory has reversed and the marginal gains made have been more than wiped out.

In the most recent AP-NORC poll, Biden's approval rating was pegged at 38 percent, down substantially from the 45 percent it had been in February, the Associated Press reported.

The 38 percent approval also nearly ties the president's lowest point ever in this particular poll, 36 percent, which was reached in July 2022.

Biden approval plummets

The AP-NORC pollsters at the University of Chicago surveyed 1,081 adults between March 16-20 and had a margin of error of 4 percent. And the results were full of bad news for President Biden, particularly in terms of his handling of the economy.

Overall, 38 percent approved of Biden's job performance thus far, including just 12 percent who "strongly" approve, which was a marked decline from the 45 percent approval he received in February and 41 percent approval in January.

Conversely, the pollsters found that 61 percent currently disapprove of Biden's job performance, including 40 percent who "strongly" disapprove, which is up from the 54 percent and 58 percent who disapproved of the president in February and January, respectively.

It's always the economy

With regard to President Biden's handling of the economy, the AP-NORC pollsters revealed that 31 percent approve, down from 36 percent last month, while 68 percent disapprove, up from 61 percent in the February survey.

Currently, just 25 percent of those polled described the economy as "good" compared to 75 percent who rated it as "poor." Those numbers were 32 percent "good" and 68 percent "poor" in February, for perspective.

Further, only 18 percent believe the national economy will improve over the next year while 54 percent said it will get worse and 28 percent think it will remain relatively unchanged. Those numbers had also all moved in the wrong directions for Biden in comparison to last month.

Speaking of the "wrong direction," that is where 78 percent of respondents said Biden was taking the country, as compared to 21 percent who said Biden had America headed in the "right direction." Again, those figures were respectively worse for the president -- 28 percent "right," 71 percent "wrong" -- than they were in February.

Partisan support not enough to bolster approval

The AP-NORC noted that President Biden's approval ratings overall and on the economy came almost entirely from his Democratic base of support, with 76 percent of Democrats approving of his job performance and 63 percent approving of his handling of the economy.

In comparison, 96 percent of Republicans disapprove of Biden both overall and on the economy, with only a mere 4 percent and 3 percent, respectively, of GOP voters who approve.

The Biden approval numbers reported by AP-NORC are actually worse than the president's current standing in the RealClearPolitics combined average of polls, which has not yet factored in this most recent survey to its calculations.

As it stands now, the RCP average has Biden's approval underwater by -8.7 points, with 43.3 percent who approve compared to 52 percent who disapprove of his job performance. The outlet's tracking graph also shows a noticeable decline in his approval number right around the end of February, and it appears likely to sink even further before it gets any better ... if it ever really even gets much better.

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