Pres. Biden Approval/Disapproval polling (2021-2025 )

So, we are in the second week of the Biden presidency and 5 public approval-disapproval polls have come in.

I have put together an excel table to gather this polling data in one place:

Biden 2021-2025 Presidential approval/disapproval data

This has a start and end date simply because that is the length of the current presidential term. It's not an editorial comment on whether Biden will be a 1-term or 2-term president.

Here a grapic as to how the table looks:



The advantage to this kind of table format is that you can see for yourself and compare the main numbers AND the internals between pollsters.

I track the following 21 approval-disapproval internals beyond the overall numbers:

Gender:
-Men
-Women
-White Women

Party affiliation:
-IND
-DEM
-GOP

Ideology:
-Moderate
-Liberal
Conservative

Race:
-African-American
-Latino
-non-white (as a general category, some pollsters do this, most do not)
-White

Urbanicity:
-Urban
-Suburban
-Rural

Region:
-Northeast
-South
-Midwest
-West

Religion:
-Evangelicals

I currently don't track by age-groups or financial status. It's just my preference to not do this. I am also not very keen on tracking by race, because if we are all Americans and in this together, race should be something we shouldn't even need to think about, but the last 5 years have inflamed so much racial tension and vitriol, I suppose it's better, at least for now, to track that subcategory.

The purpose of the approval/disapproval data that will, with time, grow into a huge amount of date, is to inform as to what the public is thinking.

Also, this data is not limited to national polling only. The excel table has five tabs:



The leftmost tab (which will surely have the most data) is for the national polling. The other four tabs are for approval/disapproval polling at the statewide level, by region of the country (the same internals will be tracked).

No one pollster provides all of the internals I am tracking. Some provide a lot, while others provide very few internals. One takes what one can collect.

-Philosophy-​

My view on this type of polling is in line with my life-long philosophy about polling, namely that one single poll all by itself doesn't mean much. Every poll can have some errors in it, or maybe that one particular poll really is spot-on. The beauty of this all lies in the aggregate of many polls from various, independent-from-each-other pollsters, meaning that the average values are usually very close to reality. And with an eye on internals, we can see where a President is improving in the eyes of the public, and where he is not.

There has also been a lot of disagreement in the past as to whether the polling group should be of "adults" (of course, meaning, adult US citizens), or registered voters. First, whether or not someone voted last time around, he or she still has a right to an opinion, and perhaps out of those adults, some will become registered voters for the next elections. But using an RV or LV screen in the polling can also be instructive. I personally think that using both screens is not a bad idea at all.

For a long time, we thought that a President should be well over the 50 mark in approval/disapproval polling in order for his party to do well in the mid-terms or to win re-election, but starting with George W. Bush, GOP guru Karl Rove once famously said on Fox in 2004: "47-48 is the new 50". So, I'm not completely sold on the idea that approval/disapproval is all that effective a tool in gauging election prospects, but indeed, this form of polling has been associated with elections (on top of other things) and for this reason, and upon the advice of one of our mods, I'm placing the thread here.

Realclearpolitics and Nate Silver's 538 both have good approval/disapproval polling aggregators. Neither of them present the internal data as well as my simple, easy to read excel table. So, if you like to get the goods quickly, this table is the right thing for you.

Should any of you have an internal that would would really like me to track (and it is an internal that is published), then I will gladly add it to the calculations.

Enjoy the data; I will be reporting about the aggregate values now and then, also if any big changes in the polling numbers occur.

Stat

PS: I see that at the moment of writing this thread, 2 more polls have also come in, I will tend to them in the next days.

 

Man, you are a "value added" treasure. A true asset to this community.

Many many thanks

 

Agreed. Thank you for your hard work in making this data easily understandable.

 

I gotta admit I'm a fan of Nate Silver's 538 polls compilation but this is fascinating...

 

Thank you for writing this up. I look forward to this being an ongoing thing and know we will all find it invaluable, thank you again.

 

Thanks! Danke sehr!

Thanks! Merci bien!

Thanks! Grazie a te!

 

Aligned with approval/disapproval data is "favorability/unfavorability" data that is usually also provided with most polling of this sort.

The jury is, after all of these years, still out as to how englightening such data is. Essentially, fav/unfav answers the question "do you like the guy, or not?".

More often than not, the two data sets tend to track pretty closely to each other, but we have certainly seen a number of instances where people say "yes" to favorability but "no" to job approval and visa-versa.

I'm still innerly debating whether or not I want to track those numbers as well, or if they are even worth the time.

Also, gradiating approval/disapproval into "strongly approve", "somewhat approve", "somewhat disapprove" and "strongly disapprove" has come into vogue in the last years, but I myself have doubts how helpful or enlightening this data is. Perhaps 50 shades of grey should remain a book and not an element of polling...

What I personally DO think is important is for a large number of pollsters to keep their fingers on the USA's pulse, especially as concerns job approval for all high elected officials (President, Senators, Representatives, Governors). And it has been my experience now over the last 18 years that the truly neutral pollsters do tend to put out the very best overall results.

Angus Reid, a Canadian firm with absolutely no dog in the race, literally pegged every aspect of the 2012 presidential election. Survey USA (SUSA) has had more bullseyes than pretty much any other pollster, and that firm stays doggedly neutral. But there will also be decidely partisan firms that also put out solid numbers that make sense. This all the more strengthens the argument that a large, healthy "gene-pool" of polling data, from which one can calculate aggregates, is usually the closest to reality.

If we truly are a Republic based on (indirect) Democracy, then it seems eminently logical that those in the executive and legislative should listen to what the American people are saying. I think this is especially true in the 3rd wave of a deadly pandemic, a crashing economy, culture wars, the measureable effects of climate change and very raw race relations. It doesn't mean that we will always agree with each other, nor does it mean that we will all interpret the data the same way, but at least we all get a good snapshot of what people are thinking at that time, especially as applies to a "frisch gebackener" ("freshly baked" - a German complimentary phrase) President.

 

not even 2wks in and America is rockin' again just by having taken out the piles of trash left behind and opening the windows

 

Attention / Achtung! / Attention, s'il vous plait:

the link to the excel table has now been modified so that everyone can read the data without having to send an email-request and should also be able to add commentary (suggestions, etc), but cannot change the data itself. So, here THE LINK again.

 

I view the like dislike gradient variations as a momentary indicator of emotional reaction to the subject's action/words/reaction at the top of the news cycle. My particular interest is in attempting to analyse the structure, technique and effectiveness of any particular political spin one way or the other. I'm afraid I'm a big believer in the Frank Luntz school of human communication - is not what you say, its what they hear. Its at the heart of marketing and politics on both a global and local basis.

But hey, I suppose that approach could be nothing more than a nerdy way to reinforce my own preconceptions.

 

Both boldeds: YEPP

It's the difference between intent and perception. Which is why certain dogwhistles have been oh so effective over many, many decades.

Good posting, bravo.

 

Some data has been added to the aggregate.

The IBD/TIPP data is interesting.

Right now, Hill-HarrisX has not provided all of the internals, I expect them to come in in the next days.

 

Just to let ya know, Biden himself says that he's only going to be a 1 term President. Many leftists here, knowing that, are hoping that he resigns in his last 1 or 2 of Presidency and let Kamala Harris take the reigns so that she can then run for two terms....essentially being President for 9-10 years because they are so sure that she will be elected and then re-elected. (never mind the fact that she couldn't even make it in the top 10 in the primaries)

Not meaning to derail your thread, just thought you should know. Information is power after all and since I'm no statistician, who knows, maybe knowing that Biden isn't aiming to be a 2 term President and that there is a possibility that he actually resigns to put Kamala in power will affect how you look at things. I know that you're just using raw numbers but it is something to think about.

 

The bolded: I concur with you on this and remember that Biden said on a couple of occasions he will be a one-term president. All I was doing was to make sure that the thread-title would not be interpreted as an editorial as to whether he will be a 1 or 2 term president. Also, after 4 years (which is the assumption at this moment), this thread will be so full that it would be time to start a new thread, anway.

As for the wet-dreams of either the extreme-Left or the extreme-Right, that stuff simply does not excite me at all. There is way too much to do right now than to be thinking of winning the next election. This past election is now only 3 months old and our President has been in office just two weeks as of today. This is still, by any definition, a fledgling presidency, just as it has been for any other President two weeks out of the gate.

As for your editorial comments over VP Harris, I cherish your right to your opinion. I will remind that in the past, there have been candidates who were beaten once, only to go on and win big later, the two most obvious examples of which ire: FDR (1920) and FDR (1932) / Nixon (1960) and Nixon (1968 ). It is also true that sitting Vice-Presidents who run for President for the cycle following their term or even for the cycle one cycle after their term have generally not done so well: Nixon in 1960, Humphrey in 1968, Mondale in 1984, Gore in 2000 - they all lost. However, Bush in 1988 (at the end of his VP term) and Biden in 2020 (one cycle after his VP term), they both won.

You are always welcome on this thread. The information is here for everyone to read.

I simply ask that people keep it sane and cogent, that's all.

 

Another source...



Rasmussen seems to have a sampling problem.

 

Repubesmussen has ALWAYS used a very small BIASED sample to SKEW their results.

But even their biased sample is still showing approval for Biden.

 

Their average is not far from mine:



RCP does not include some public polling because it simply does not like it, which makes RCP more biased than people want to admit. It does not record the AP/NORC polls, although they are public and well research. It also does not include PEW, which is one of the premium pollsters across the globe. Nor does it include PRRI (which polls religious voters, but is a public poll).

And yeah, Rasmussen doesn't have a problem with its sampling. Rasmussen has a problem with honesty and integrity.

 

that was a typo, should read as: does

 

Yes. At this point, Biden is likely in a honeymoon phase because he's focused on beating back the coronavirus pandemic, the number one issue for most of us.

I notice RCP has moved down the Google results, probably because they appear to have stopped paying for higher placement.

I think so. They probably have a deliberately biased sample and let the results follow the bias rather than cook the percentages.

 

A number of recurring polls have been added, dated from February 9th until yesterday.

Take a look.

 

For purposes of historical comparison:

20 Years & 3 Presidents: A Comparison Using TIPP Indexes

Raghavan Mayur, TIPP

 

Thanks. Two things I noticed about your data, and doesn't really surprise me.

First the the difference between urban and rural. Those that live in urban areas tend to like Biden, and those that live in rural areas tend to dislike him. This is not surprising in that liberals tend to live in urban areas and conservatives tend to live in rural areas.

The next is the wide gap between liberals and conservatives. And it is WIDE. Again, not that surprising. It would be interesting if you could compare the differences between, say the last 5-10 Presidents? See what the change is. Pretty sure it would show the division widening between Presidents. Especially if you are able to do at least the last 10 Presidents. Not sure if you could do this, or even if you want to do this. But it would be interesting to see imo.

 

The Biden honeymoon period will end soon. The left-of-Biden (Socialists) are regretting their votes.



https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.c...mpaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=twitter

 

Rasmussen Polling:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Friday shows that 49% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Biden’s job performance. Forty-nine percent (49%) disapprove.

The latest figures include 31% who Strongly Approve of the job Biden is doing and 41% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -10. (see trends)

https://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/biden_administration/prez_track_feb26

 

Yes, I have also noticed these differences. If time allows (because I crunch a lot of COVID-19 numbers) I will run a compare.

But I do think the jist of this is that the polarization within the Union is more than we have ever seen before in our lifetimes.

But it should be noticed that I have already, just with the naked eye, noticed that Biden is faring far better with rural residents than Obama ever did.