Joe Biden Could Become the Most Unpopular President To Be Re-Elected

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Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property insurance market, local and national politics. She has previously extensively covered U.S. and European politics. Giulia joined Newsweek in 2022 from CGTN Europe and had previously worked at the European Central Bank. She is a graduate in Broadcast Journalism from Nottingham Trent University and holds a Bachelor's degree in Politics and International Relations from Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy. She speaks English, Italian, and a little French and Spanish. You can get in touch with Giulia by emailing: g.carbonaro@newsweek.com.

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Joe Biden could become the most unpopular president to be re-elected to the country's top job should he run again in 2024. That's according to recent polls showing the Democrat would likely defeat Donald Trump in a rematch next year.

As of April 23, the president's approval rating stands at 42.3 percent, according to figures collated by FiveThirtyEight. It's a slight improvement from the sub-40 percent level reached in summer 2022, but still much below the peak of 53 percent Biden enjoyed at the beginning of his presidency in January 2021.

Historically, presidents who have been seeking re-election with a 50 percent or higher job approval rate from American voters have easily secured a second term, while those whose popularity was lower than 50 percent have lost the election.

Joe Biden
U.S. President Joe Biden reacts to a member of the audience after signing an executive order that would create the White House Office of Environmental Justice, in the Rose Garden of the White House April... Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Barack Obama, whose popularity had slumped under 40 percent during his first term, defeated Mitt Romney to win his second term in office in November 2011 after his approval rating surged to 52 percent just before election day.

At least two incumbents who ran for a second bid for the presidency with an approval rating below 50 percent lost. These were George H. W. Bush in 1992, who ran with an approval rating of 34 percent, and Jimmy Carter, who ran in 1980 with an approval rating of 37 percent. There are some exceptions: George W. Bush had an approval rating of 48 percent just before he won his second term in office in 2004.

Notably, the 2024 presidential race could see two equally unpopular challengers face each other. While at the moment it is not yet clear who'll be the candidate for each party, Donald Trump has officially announced a bid for the presidency, and Biden is expected to announce his candidacy soon.

Running with a low approval rate is nothing new for Trump. The former president won in 2016 while being actively disliked by many Americans, with 61 percent of voters either having an unfavorable opinion of Trump or disliking him. He was the first president to win with less than 40 percent total favorable rating—though he was the fifth to secure the presidency despite losing the popular vote.

According to FiveThirtyEight's latest data, Trump's approval rating sat at 38.6 percent as of January 20, with 57.9 percent of Americans disapproving of the embattled former president. The number of voters disapproving of Trump is the highest it has ever been since January 2017.

At the moment, a number of recent polls show that Biden would beat Trump should the two have a rematch in 2024. A series of nationwide polls collated by FiveThirtyEight and ran between December 2022 and January 2023 show Biden always a few percentage points ahead of Trump in voters' preferences. It would likely be the first time that such unpopular candidates face each other at the polls.

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About the writer

Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property insurance market, local and national politics. She has previously extensively covered U.S. and European politics. Giulia joined Newsweek in 2022 from CGTN Europe and had previously worked at the European Central Bank. She is a graduate in Broadcast Journalism from Nottingham Trent University and holds a Bachelor's degree in Politics and International Relations from Università degli Studi di Cagliari, Italy. She speaks English, Italian, and a little French and Spanish. You can get in touch with Giulia by emailing: g.carbonaro@newsweek.com.

Writers Page

Giulia Carbonaro is a Newsweek reporter based in London, U.K. Her focus is on the U.S. economy, housing market, property ... Read more