Another new poll shows increasing levels of approval for President Joe Biden.
In Gallup polling conducted across August, the portion of overall respondents indicating they approved of Biden’s job performance hit 44 percent, which was an increase of six percentage points from the previous Gallup survey. The polling organization notes their new survey was completed before the recent announcement by Biden of a plan for cancelling significant levels of student debt for many Americans. Right in the middle of the polling period, however, Democrats scored a significant legislative victory with the passage and presidential signing of the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping budget reconciliation deal that, among other components, contains the largest single investment by the U.S. government into fighting climate change in history.
The bill was finalized and passed after months on end of negotiations among Democrats. It didn’t need — and didn’t receive — a single Republican vote in either chamber. The last time that Biden’s level of public approval was at 44 percent or higher in Gallup polling was in August of last year, when the portion of the public indicating they approved of Biden’s job performance hit 49 percent. In the new poll, 53 percent of overall respondents indicated they disapproved of Biden’s job performance. The biggest boost in approval for Biden’s job performance among members of an individual political group was with independents. In July polling from Gallup, 31 percent of independents said they approved of the job Biden was doing. Now, it’s 40 percent.
Just 4 percent of Republicans indicated they approved in the new Gallup numbers. Since becoming president last year, the highest level of approval Biden ever received with GOP respondents in Gallup polling was 12 percent. Alongside legislative successes for Democrats, which also include an ambitious bill to support the U.S. tech industry, economic indicators are moving in a positive direction. After dramatic rises, gas prices are falling, and unemployment remains generally low as inflation also slows down. In July, a key government index of inflation known as the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index actually showed a decrease of 0.1 percent on a month-to-month basis, meaning prices fell at that rate from the previous month’s levels. (Prices remained higher than they were last July.) The month-to-month decrease was driven in substantial part by falling energy costs.
Gallup notes that according to their numbers Biden now stands at a higher level of public approval than where five of his recent presidential predecessors were in the August before a given year’s midterm elections. His level of approval is higher in Gallup’s polling than the portion of the public saying they approved of Trump in August 2018, when Republicans went on to lose control of the House. Polling of the midterm elections and recent election results in a Congressional race in New York’s Hudson Valley region, where Democrats significantly outperformed all major surveys, suggest Democrats are heading towards some level of relative success in the midterms.
