By Jason Lange
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s public approval rating rose this week to its highest level since early June, following a series of legislative wins for his Democratic Party, according to a Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll completed on Tuesday.
The two-day national poll found that 41% of Americans approve of Biden’s job performance. It was his first time above 40% since early June.
Biden’s lowest ratings of 36% – in four weekly polls in May, June and July – rivaled the lows of his predecessor, Donald Trump, whose popularity bottomed out at 33% in December 2017.
In four of the last five weeks Biden’s ratings rose as the Democratic-controlled Congress passed a swath of legislation to fight climate change, lower drug prices and boost efforts to make the United States more competitive with China’s science and technology efforts.
Democrats are expected to lose control of the U.S. House of Representatives in a Nov. 8 election, but forecasters say they have better odds of keeping control of the Senate. Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell this week gave Republicans only a 50-50 chance of taking back control of that chamber.
Even with control only of the House, Republicans would be able to bring Biden’s legislative agenda to a halt and launch potentially politically damaging investigations.
This week’s poll showed 78% of Democrats approved of Biden, up from 69% in early July. Only 12% of Republicans approved of Biden, a figure that has remained largely steady in recent weeks.
Biden’s overall approval rating has been below 50% since August of last year as Americans grapple with inflation and an economy scarred by the COVID-19 health crisis.
Inflation has shown some signs of easing, however, with gasoline prices dropping from record highs.
The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted online in English throughout the United States, gathered responses from 1,005 adults, including 458 Democrats and 379 Republicans. It has a credibility interval – a measure of precision – of four percentage points.
(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)
