Joe Biden's Approval Rating Turns Positive for First Time in Five Months

President Biden has recorded his first positive poll rating in five months in a new Rasmussen Reports survey, which found 49 percent of Americans approve of his conduct in office while 48 percent disapprove.

According to polling aggregate site FiveThirtyEight, this is the first time more Americans have approved than disapproved of Biden since a YouGov survey published in May, though it remains an outlier with most surveys giving Biden a negative approval rating.

Biden, who is seeking a second White House term in November 2024, has struggled in recent polling with an NBC survey conducted last month putting his disapproval rating at 56 percent, the highest since he took office in January 2021, versus 41 percent approval. Republican opponents have focused heavily on the 80-year-old's age and fitness to govern, especially after a series of gaffes in September.

Despite giving Biden a net positive rating, the Rasmussen poll, of 1,500 likely U.S. voters conducted between September 25 and October 1, found the president had a major deficit among voters who said they felt "strongly." Some 28 percent of respondents said they "strongly approve" of his performance versus 41 percent who "strongly disapprove."

The Rasmussen poll is the first included by FiveThirtyEight, which lists polls it deems reputable, to give Biden a positive approval since a YouGov survey of 1,500 American adults conducted between May 6-9. This gave the president an approval rating of 48 percent, versus 46 percent disapproval.

However, data compiled by FiveThirtyEight shows the Rasmussen survey is very much an outlier, with the aggregation website giving Biden an overall net disapproval rating of 54.9 percent, versus 39.8 percent approval, on October 2.

Newsweek has reached out to the White House for comment via email.

One recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, carried out from September 15 to 20, gave former President Donald Trump, who leads GOP primary polls by a wide margin, a 10-point lead in a potential matchup against Biden, at 52 percent of the vote versus 42 percent. However, the newspaper stressed this result was an outlier that did not match other surveys, which put the two rivals far closer.

The Rasmussen poll was conducted as a government shutdown loomed. Congress eventually reached a bipartisan short-term agreement on Saturday that keeps the government funded for 45 days. The measure's passage gives Congress time to continue developing a long-term solution. Biden issued a statement shortly after Congress signed off on the bill, calling it "good news."

The poll also comes as House Republicans launched an impeachment inquiry into the president. The first hearing was held on Thursday, September 28. Republicans are investigating whether the president exchanged political favors for financial payments to his son, Hunter Biden, when served under Barack Obama as vice president between 2009-2017. However no direct link between payments to Hunter and his father's policy decisions has been proven, and the president strongly denies any wrongdoing.

On September 28, the GOP's witness, legal scholar and George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley, said he did not believe "the evidence currently meets the standard of a high crime and misdemeanor needed for an article of impeachment."

"I have previously stated that, while I believe that an impeachment inquiry is warranted, I do not believe that the evidence currently meets the standard of a high crime and misdemeanor needed for an article of impeachment," Turley wrote in his written statement, which he read verbatim during the hearing.