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PoliticsPolitics

Biden’s approval rating is underwater in every single battleground state

By
Lance Lambert
Lance Lambert
Former Real Estate Editor
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By
Lance Lambert
Lance Lambert
Former Real Estate Editor
Down Arrow Button Icon
November 24, 2021, 4:00 PM ET
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The polling is pretty clear: President Joe Biden’s honeymoon is over. As of Wednesday, his aggregated approval rating stands at just 42.9%, according to FiveThirtyEight—down from 53% when he entered the White House in January. Among post-World War II presidents, only Donald Trump had a worse approval rating (38.4%) at this point in his presidency.

But what’s more concerning for Democrats than the topline figure is the state-level data. Using polling conducted in October, Morning Consult recently calculated Biden’s approval rating with registered voters in every U.S. state. The finding? Biden is currently underwater (meaning his disapproval rating is greater than his approval rating) in 32 states. While he has a positive net approval rating in 18 states—which, by any measurement, are very blue states.

When you zoom in on battleground states, things look even worse for the White House: In the 11 states Fortune considered battleground states in 2020, Biden’s approval rating is underwater in every single one of them. Of those, he’s doing the worst in Iowa (-11 percentage points), Ohio (-10 points), and Arizona (-9 points). Those battleground states are followed by Wisconsin (-7 points), Pennsylvania (-5 points), Florida (-5), North Carolina (-5 points), Michigan (-4 points), Nevada (-3 points), Georgia (-3 points), and New Hampshire (-2 points). (We should note that each of these states have a single-digit percentage of voters who neither approve nor disapprove of Biden’s job performance).

Let’s say he runs again in 2024—which the White House said this week he will. If he loses every state he’s currently underwater in, he’d lose in a 316-to-222 electoral landslide.

But the presidential reelection is hardly what concerns Democratic operatives at the moment. Instead, they’re focused on 2022, when Democrats will have to defend their slim U.S. House majority (221 to 213 seats) and their one-vote edge in the U.S. Senate.

The early signs aren’t looking good for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Earlier this month, Republicans won the Virginia Gubernatorial race for the first time since 2009, with Glenn Youngkin winning by +1.9 points in a state Biden won by 10.1 points in 2020. According to Morning Consult, as Virginia voters hit the polls, Biden’s net approval rating stood at just +3 points. Soon after winning that race this month, Republicans became the clear betting market favorites to win both chambers of Congress in 2022.

All of this is a big change from the spring.

In April, Biden had a positive (or flat) net approval rating in every single battleground state. At that time, Biden was +11 points in Georgia, + 11 points in Michigan, +9 points in Nevada, and +9 points in Pennsylvania. Not too far behind those states in April were his positive net approval ratings in Arizona (+8 points), Florida (+8 points), Wisconsin (+7 points), North Carolina (+7 points), New Hampshire (+7 points), and Ohio (+2 points). While in Iowa, he was +0 points.

Biden’s approval rating was holding steady through the spring and early summer as COVID-19 vaccines helped boost the economic recovery. But in August, that popularity began to fade quickly. During that month, the Biden Administration was sharply criticized for its handling of its Afghanistan withdrawal—and the Taliban’s recapture the country seemingly overnight. Around that same time, hospitals in parts of the country were filling up again with COVID-19 patients due to the Delta variant. Additionally, inflation last month soared to a 31-year high.

Can Biden recover? Historically speaking, it’s challenging for presidents to bounce back after seeing their approval rating sink during their first-year in office. The outlier, of course, is former President Bill Clinton, who went on to win a second-term after his approval rating slipped during his first year at the helm.

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By Lance LambertFormer Real Estate Editor
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Lance Lambert is a former Fortune editor who contributes to the Fortune Analytics newsletter.

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