President Joe Biden still has some favorable polls backing his administration amid struggles, but the average of the polls by analyst FiveThirtyEight has the president's approval rating average hitting new a low at 43.4%.
Biden's average approval has been on a steady decline since mid-March, when it peaked at 55%. His average approval cratered to 43.4%, leaving the largest net unfavorable rating in the first 10 months of his presidency.
Biden has a majority of disapproval now at 50.6% on average, up from a low of 36% when he first took office. And it has steadily risen since.
The biggest ding to the administration came in August — the height of the Afghanistan evacuation coupled with surging coronavirus case numbers and deaths.
More bad news could be forthcoming.
The off-year bellwether gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey are underway before November's election in two states run by Democrats, but if either Republican can eke out a victory, it would be a referendum on the struggles of the Biden administration.
That could put Democrats' narrow margins in the House and Senate at risk in 2022.
Democrat Terry McAuliffe and Republican Glenn Youngkin are a dead heat at about 48% support each with just a week to go, according to a Cygnal survey released Sunday.
"We got to get Democrats out to vote," McAuliffe, the governor from 2014 to 2018, said, the New York Post reported. "We are facing a lot of headwinds from Washington."
"As you know, the president is unpopular today, unfortunately, here in Virginia," McAuliffe continued. "So we have got to plow through."
Biden defeated former President Donald Trump by 11 points in the 2020 presidential election in Virginia, but the struggles of Democrats in the beltway are impacting opinions of likely voters just outside the beltway in Viriginia, according to Cygnal pollster Chris Kratzer.
"The direction of Virginia could be a bellwether of things to come in 2022," Kratzer said. "We're seeing generic Republican support rise across the much of our polling, while Biden's image continues to plummet."
Biden is heading to Arlington, Va., to stump for McAuliffe on Tuesday. Former President Barack Obama and Vice President Kamala Harris have already been on the campaign trail.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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