President Joe Biden's steady increase in job approval among U.S. voters since the November midterm elections is showing signs of coming to an end, The Hill reported.
According to Amie Parnes, the outlet's senior staff writer, a boost caused by Democrats' better-than-expected election results last year and positive job numbers has waned since the start of 2023.
Parnes specifically pointed to the discovery of classified files at the president's Greenville, Delaware, residence and University of Pennsylvania-affiliated think tank office in Washington, D.C., as a reason for the apparent turn in grace.
Another potential factor noted was Biden's delayed response last week to the Chinese balloon, which hovered over U.S. airspace for more than 24 hours before being shot down off the coast of South Carolina on Friday.
Pentagon officials have claimed that the balloon was used for surveillance over "sensitive sites," potentially including the nuclear missile silos in Montana. China, meanwhile, has maintained the balloon was an off-course "civilian airship" primarily used to track weather.
Those factors, along with general dissatisfaction over the entirety of Biden's presidency, appear to be confounding upon each other, Parnes argued.
"A Washington Post-ABC News poll out this week also showed that 62% of Americans say Biden has not achieved much during his first two years in office," she wrote, adding that the same poll has "former President Donald Trump leads Biden by a slim margin, 48%to 45%."
Even within the Democratic party, Parnes suggested that eyebrows were rising. Notably, she cited a recent survey from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research showing that only 37% of the party wants Biden to run for reelection.
Democratic strategist Brad Bannon told The Hill that "President Biden should be gravely concerned about his shaky position in the polls," with several other anonymous insiders parroting the same sentiment.
Still, he believes that Biden's State of the Union address on Tuesday could serve as an opportunity for the president to "make a compelling case for reelection" and switch up the current narrative.
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