Joe Biden sinks below Donald Trump in the polls

The latest poll figures point to a difficult year for the Democrats as they fight to maintain control of congress.

Joe Biden pays his respects to former senator Harry Reid on Capitol Hill on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

For the first time, Joe Biden’s popularity has sunk below Donald Trump’s at the same point in their presidencies, according to a poll published on Thursday AEDT that points to a difficult year for the Democrats as they fight to maintain control of congress.

The US President’s approval rating fell to 33 per cent this month, three percentage points lower than Mr Trump’s rating in January 2018, and lower than the former president’s lowest ever rating of 35 per cent, according to the Quinnipiac poll, rated A for quality by US polling guru Nate Silver.

“Easily the worst poll yet for President Biden, and none have been good lately,” said Joe Concha, political columnist for The Hill, an influential Washington newspaper.

“It’s an outlier, but goodness me is the new Quinnipiac poll a disaster for Biden,” said Charles Cooke, a senior political writer for conservative magazine National Review, referring to the fact the President’s approval rating on ­average across more than 10 major national polls remained around 41 per cent.

Former president Donald Trump. Picture: AFP

All the major surveys showed the President’s popularity had fallen steadily since August last year, when the US withdrew chaotically from Afghanistan, and had been further undermined by rising ­inflation and an explosion of Covid-19 cases in the final few months of the year.

Mr Biden tried to shift the political agenda away from his signature Build Back Better bill, which failed in the Senate last year, to electoral reform this week in a landmark and fiery speech in Atlanta, meeting with a furious response from Republicans – especially senate minority leader Mitch McConnell, who called it a “profoundly unpresidential … rant”.

“I have known, liked, and personally respected Joe Biden for many years. I did not recognise the man at that podium yesterday,” Senator McConnell said on Wednesday (Thursday AEDT), arguing Mr Biden’s address at a university in Georgia was “incoherent”, “incorrect”, “beneath his office” and “unbecoming of a president”.

Mr Biden likened opponents of Democrats’ voting rights legislation, which would shift electoral powers from the states to the federal government, to racists, totalitarians and autocrats in his address, which also called for changing a longstanding Senate rule that requires a 60-vote majority for most legislation.

“They want chaos to reign. We want the people to rule,” he said. “Do you want to be on the side of Dr King or George Wallace? Do you want to be on the side of John Lewis or Bull Connor? Do you want to be on the side of Abraham Lincoln or Jefferson Davis?”, Mr Biden asked, contrasting civil rights leaders of history with well known segregationists.

Until now Democrats had taken solace in the fact that Mr Biden, consistently one of the most unpopular of all US presidents at the same stage in the political cycle since the Second World War, was at least more popular that his predecessor.

Among Hispanic voters, traditionally strong supporters of the Democratic Party, Mr Biden’s approval fell to 28 per cent, lower than among white voters (32 per cent), the Quinnipiac poll found.

“This is a seismic shift in American politics,” said Giancarlo Sopo, a public relations strategist. Across all major polls, the President’s approval rating on average remains above 30 per cent.

The survey of 1313 Americans also found the share of Republicans who wanted Mr Trump to run for president again in 2024 dropped from 78 per cent to 69 per cent, suggesting his recent forays into the national vaccination ­debate may have upset some of this core supporters.

Mr Trump, who is expected to run again in 2024, last month repeatedly encouraged Americans to be vaccinated against Covid-19, drawing boos at one speaking event from some of his supporters.

Conservative author Ann Coulter ripped into Mr Trump on Wednesday on Twitter, calling him a “liar and a conman” after the ­former president appeared to criticise Florida’s Republican ­governor, Ron DeSantis, for keeping his booster vaccination status quiet.