An average of polling that asks Americans whether they approve of the job President Joe Biden is doing in office shows the Democratic leader’s standing continuing to improve as Donald Trump makes what is ostensibly another White House bid, although he hasn’t done much to further that presidential campaign since formally confirming it.
The average from the elections data and analysis site FiveThirtyEight had 43.5 percent of respondents approving of Biden’s job as president on Wednesday, which was January 4. Biden reached and passed 43 percent of the public approving — on average — in December of last year, making the present what seems like the best stretch of average approval ratings since about a year ago, although he briefly reached average levels including an even 43 percent during last year. Biden hasn’t sunk back below 43 percent since hitting that level of support December 19 last year. Individual sources feeding into the average also show positive signs for Biden, including the 47 percent of Rasmussen respondents approving of the president’s performance and the 44 percent of YouGov respondents indicating the same.
Real-world election results are also available to support the notion of persistent support for Dems, considering the party even expanded its majority in the Senate in last year’s midterm elections despite what were sometimes proclamations of gloom about the party’s chances. Dems also defeated the GOP in closely watched races for governor and the House, although success on the latter front wasn’t enough to keep Republicans from nabbing a thin majority in the Congress ostensibly starting this week.
The chaos around Republicans even settling on a pick for Speaker, leading to the vote for Speaker going to more than one round for the first time in 100 years, suggests the Republicans leading the House won’t even get much done — which is no doubt a positive sign for those concerned about the party’s potential impacts. The willingness expressed by prominent House Republicans to publicly break with Trump in the Speaker’s race suggests there could be an actually broad opening for a GOP presidential primary candidate who’s not Trump — if someone who other details indicate would have a solid chance, like Ron DeSantis, ever actually joins.
Image: Gage Skidmore/ Creative Commons
