Joe Biden's Approval Rating Compared to Trump Rings Alarm Bells

Joe Biden is more unpopular than Donald Trump was at the same stage in his presidency, according to a comparison of polling data conducted by political analytics website FiveThirtyEight.

The website gave Biden a net approval rating of -14.6 percent on June 11, notably lower than the -10.9 percent Trump recorded the same number of days into his administration.

Polling indicates Biden and Trump are the frontrunners to represent their respective parties at the 2024 presidential election, potentially setting up a re-run of the 2020 contest. The latest data gives a much needed boost to Trump's campaign, after the former president was indicted in both New York and Florida on unrelated cases, but will cause alarm among Democratic strategists.

FiveThirtyEight, which was founded by polling guru Nate Silver, aggregates recent polls for each candidate, then weighs the data by perceived polling company reliability, sample size and how often the pollster releases surveys on the subject.

Speaking to Newsweek, Mary Radcliffe, a senior research assistant at FiveThirtyEight, commented: "The tracker isn't just averaging a certain number of polls, but using a technique called local polynomial regression, that essentially fits a curve to the polls on each day."

The FiveThirtyEight study also shows Biden is less popular following 874 days in the White House than all other post-war U.S. presidents, with the sole exception of Jimmy Carter. Just 41 percent of voters approve of the incumbent's performance at this stage in the electoral cycle, versus 42.3 percent for President Trump, 47.4 percent for Barack Obama and 61.5 for George W. Bush. Carter was significantly less popular than any other president 874 days into his administration, with an approval rating of just 28.8 percent.

Following a poll last month by The Washington Post-ABC News showing similarly poor approval ratings for Biden, including a fall of 6 points between February and May, political strategist Donna Brazile said Democrats should "wake up."

"It's sobering in the sense that the coalition that elected Joe Biden, with the historic numbers that we saw in 2020, that coalition right now is fragmented. That should concern them," she told ABC.

Former Clinton pollster Mark Penn told Fox News of the same poll that "with numbers like this, they're looking at a potential Titanic at this point unless it changes."

In an opinion piece for Newsweek last month, former congressional staffer Matt Robison gave several possible reasons for Biden's poll problem. "What's happening? We don't know for sure, but a strong possibility is that Democrats have disillusioned and confused voters by overpromising and underdelivering," he wrote.

Newsweek has contacted the White House and Donald Trump for comment via email and an official online press contact form, respectively.

Trump is due to be arraigned at a Miami courtroom on Tuesday, after being indicted on 37 counts last Thursday related to his alleged mishandling of classified documents after his presidency had ended.

The arraignment will be presided over by Cecilia M. Altonaga, chief judge for the Southern District of Florida, who has banned the media from bringing cameras, phones and other electronic devices into the courtroom.

CBS News Congressional correspondent Scott MacFarlane tweeted: "There will be no photos. No video. No audio. And no journalists permitted to communicate to the outside world through phone devices (or thru any other technology) during the first ever federal arraignment of a former U.S. President."

He added: "This historic American moment will largely (if not fully) be invisible to America."

Trump has denied any wrongdoing, describing the case against him as "election interference" and "a continuation of the greatest witch hunt of all time," on his Truth Social website."

Update 6/13/23, 1:30 p.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information and comment.