Joe Biden‘s latest approval rating for May 2022 is lower than former President Donald Trump‘s rating for May 2018, showing that the latter was more highly regarded by the public at the same points in their presidencies.
Comparing May 20, 2018, to May 20, 2022, Trump’s lead over Biden was not by much, according to the data shared by FiveThirtyEight. Biden scored an approval rating of 40.7 percent, while Trump scored 42.4 percent, a lead of less than 2 percentage points.
The FiveThirtyEight data considers several different polls and takes into account the quality, recency, sample size and partisan tendencies of each one.
In recent months, the Biden administration has been plagued by criticisms over issues like rising inflation, border policies and a nationwide baby formula shortage that is leaving many American families in fear or despair. A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Research released Friday showed that Biden’s approval rating dipped to 39 percent, the lowest of his presidency, signaling trouble for the Democratic Party ahead of the coming midterm elections.
The AP poll shows that Democrats in particular have been losing favor for the president. Of the Democratic respondents, 33 percent said that the country is heading in the right direction, compared with the 49 percent who said so in April. Biden was also given a 73 percent approval rating among Democrats, a large decrease considering that his rating in previous AP-NORC polls from 2021 was never below 82 percent.