Joe Biden’s approval rating plunged to lowest level since he took office in January 2021 after the
Taliban’s dramatic capture of Kabul on Sunday (August 15).
The Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted on Monday (August 16), found that 46% of American adults approved of Biden’s performance in office, the lowest recorded in weekly polls that started when his presidency began.
It is also down seven percentage points from a similar poll that ran on Friday, just before the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, wiping away two decades of U.S. military presence that cost nearly 1 trillion taxpayer dollars and thousands of American lives.
A separate Ipsos snap poll, also conducted on Monday, found that fewer than half of Americans liked the way Biden has steered the U.S. military and diplomatic effort in Afghanistan this year.
Other highlights from the poll include:
→ 51% praised former presidents Donald Trump and Barack Obama’s handling of the war.
→ 68% Americans in the 18-65 age group agreed that the war “was going to end badly, no matter when the US left”.
→ 6/10 Republicans and 7/10 Democrats agreed that the Afghan government’s swift surrender was evidence why the US should get out of the conflict.
Biden’s response to the crisis in Afghanistan has drawn intense criticism including from his predecessor Donald Trump, who called the president’s handling of the situation “the greatest embarrassment in the history of our country.”
The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online, in English, throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 947 American adults, including 403 Democrats and 350 Republicans. The results have a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 4 percentage points.
The Ipsos online snap poll gathered responses from 1,000 people, including 443 Democrats and 247 Republicans. It has a credibility interval of about 4 percentage points.
Separately, Axios reported on Monday that Biden’s average approval rating dropped below 50% for the first time. The US-based media outlet said that Biden has a 49.8% approval rating in the FiveThirtyEight average and 49.4% approval rating in the RealClearPolitics average.
“This marks a precipitous decline from the FiveThirtyEight peak of 55.1% in March and the RCP peak of 55.7% in April” Axios wrote.
With reporting by Reuters, Axios
