Biden’s public approval rises to 42%, highest since June: Reuters/Ipsos

By Jason Lange

WASHINGTON, March 8 (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden’s approval rating rose to 42%, its highest level since June, amid slowing domestic inflation and robust job growth, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

Biden’s popularity had suffered since the early days of his presidency in early 2021, declining almost steadily until the May-July period of last year, when it hit a low of 36%.

Since then, his approval rating has steadily increased, with 42% approving of his work this week, up from 41% a month earlier. The Reuters/Ipsos poll has a margin of error of three percentage points.

Biden’s approval rating is still quite low by historical standards.

In decades past, presidents have only occasionally gone through long stretches with approval ratings as low as Biden’s, though Donald Trump has spent much of his presidency from 2017 to 2021 with low levels. similar approval ratings and has sometimes dropped further, reaching 33% in December 2017. .

Biden, 80, is expected to launch his re-election bid in the coming weeks. The slight rebound in its popularity comes as the pace of consumer price increases slowed to 6.4% in the 12 months to January from 9.1% in June.

Biden is expected to present a budget proposal this week that could highlight his goals for a second term, including protecting and possibly expanding the social safety net, as well as reducing the federal deficit by taxing wealthier Americans more.

The Biden administration is currently defending in court a program to cancel certain student loans granted by the federal government, and the Reuters/Ipsos poll showed strong partisan divisions on the issue, as happened with the own performance. of the leader.

81% of Democrats support the federal government’s loan forgiveness program, compared to 29% of Republicans. Similarly, 81% of Democratic respondents said they approved of Biden’s performance, although only 10% of Republicans agreed.

84% of Republican respondents said they were in favor of the difficulty for immigrants to seek asylum in the United States at the southern border, against only 35% of Democrats.

Partisan divisions in the poll were less pronounced over whether federal courts should overturn government approval of a drug used for miscarriages and abortion care.

On this issue, 70% of respondents – including 82% of Democrats and 53% of Republicans – were against judicial intervention that would ban mifepristone nationwide.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted across the United States, collected responses from 1,023 adults, using a nationally representative sample.

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing in Spanish by Ricardo Figueroa)