President Joe Biden will celebrate Memorial Day weekend with the second-lowest approval rating of his presidency, according to Gallup polling from Friday.
Amid pressure to raise the debt ceiling during budget negotiations, just 39 percent of Americans approve of Biden, only two percentage points higher than his personal low recorded last month and in March of last year, when just 37 percent approved.
Among partisans, 84 percent of Democrats, just 33 percent of independents, and 4 percent of Republicans approve of Biden’s job performance.
The poll sampled 1,011 adults from May 1–24 with a four-point margin of error.
As the nation moves closer to possibly defaulting on the debt, Biden refused to negotiate on the budget through debt ceiling talks from the start. That now appears to be a mistake. Biden finds himself caught between the far-left’s demands and the Republicans Party’s leverage.
If House Republicans retain leverage, Biden must concede. But those concessions will anger the Democrat base and leave Biden in a tough position heading into 2024.
During the debt negotiations, Congress has become more popular. Twenty percent approve of the job Congress is doing, up from 16% percent last month, according to the Gallup survey.
Recent polling also shows an improvement in House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) approval rating, which has soared 18 points since he became speaker.
Americans seem to care about cutting wasteful spending, a key issue negotiated and pushed by McCarthy.
Sixty percent of Americans say Congress should cut wasteful spending while increasing the debt limit, a CNN poll found Tuesday. Only 24 percent believe Congress should increase the debt limit even without cutting wasteful spending.
Follow Wendell Husebø on Twitter @WendellHusebø. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality.