Joe Biden’s approval ratings are falling as the president approaches the final weeks of his term.

Biden’s average rating hit a six-month high on Sept. 3 at 42.3 percent, but has been trending downward since Sept. 30, poll tracking site 538 shows. As Biden enters the final days of his presidency, he raises the possibility that he could leave the White House with the lowest approval rating since records began in the 1930s.

It fell 3.6 points in less than six weeks, with 38.7 percent of Americans satisfied with the job they are doing as of Friday, November 8. Biden’s current rating is only slightly above his average all-time low of 36.9 percent on July 4, a few days later. your poor cnn debate performance against Donald Trump, prompting calls for the president to end his re-election bid.

“I don’t think anything has really changed in terms of presidential performance that would produce even lower approval ratings,” said Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. news week.

“But democrats and the president are receiving a lot of scrutiny and negative media coverage, and this will surely have an effect. Additionally, Biden did not perform very well as a defender of Kamala Harris.”

news week has contacted the White House for comment via email.

Biden has faced historically low approval ratings at times during his tenure. In May, 538 said he was the least popular president of the last 75 years among those who had served at least 1,202 days in office. These scores, along with the man’s age of 81, were cited as reasons why Biden should not seek a second term.

Biden has been blamed by Democratic figures such as former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi for impeding the vice president Harris‘possibilities of electoral victory of donald trump trying to run for office again for so long. When Biden ended his 2024 bid, Harris had just over 100 days to campaign before Election Day.

“As for his legacy, I don’t think a further drop in approval ratings will make much of a difference in how he or his presidency is viewed. Falling out of being the nominee at the last minute, and the events that led up to that , will be much more important in that aspect of the evaluation,” Reeher said.

“On the other hand, there are some important domestic achievements to offset those political and electoral shortcomings, and historians will weigh the political history of the Biden presidency against the political history. It’s a tale of two presidencies.

“But once again, the manner and why of Biden’s resignation, and the outcome of the election, seal that fate more than those numbers,” Reeher said. It should be noted that since Election Day, there has been a 0.2 point increase in Biden’s average approval rating, going from 38.5 percent on November 5 to 38.7 on Friday.

The country has also faced high inflation levels for decades under Biden, which has been cited as a key reason. voters backed Trump over Harris in the 2024 elections.

Reeher added that Biden’s unpopularity is similar to that of Republican President George W. Bush is in the final stages of his second term.

BushGallup approval ratings hit 90 percent in Gallup polls in the wake of the Terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. In late 2008, they hit a pre-election low of 25 percent. It would increase to 34 percent in the previous week. barack obamaThe inauguration.

Trump also saw a decline in approval ratings in his final days as president, largely due to the January 6 attack on the Capitol in 2021.

As of January 4, 2021, Trump’s average approval score was 42.6 percent. He ended up leaving the White House with a 38.6 percent approval rating and a 57.9 disapproval rating.

Biden had posted approval ratings in the mid-50s for most of his first year in office.

However, he faced heavy criticism over the US withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, when more than 180 people, including 13 US military personnel, were He dies in a suicide attack at the Kabul airport. just before the taliban take back the country.

Following the withdrawal, Biden’s approval rating fell below 50 percent and would never surpass that mark again.

A post-election The economist/YouGov survey of 1,590 registered voters showed that 41 percent approve of the way Biden is handling his job as president, while 57 percent disapprove.

Jamal Simmons, Harris’ former communications director, suggested that the the president should resign and allow the vice president to run the country until Trump returns to office on January 20.

Simmons told CNN State of the Union on Sunday that Biden has been a “phenomenal” president but should use his remaining time in office to fulfill his promise to be a “transitional figure.”

“I could resign the presidency in the next 30 days and make Kamala Harris president of the United States,” Simmons said.

In a follow-up post about X, previously TwitterSimmons said: “It would turn the tables on Trump, prevent Kamala from presiding on January 6, and make it easier for (the) next woman to run.”

“Democrats have better policies, but we must realize that the old rules no longer apply. We are not playing table tennis; we are in a mixed martial arts fight, and Americans respond to drama and emotion,” Simmons added . “We should use that to make our case for a better way forward.”

Political commentator Ed Krassenstein said it was a “stupid idea” for Biden to resign now to briefly hand the presidency to Harris.

“Let the first female president prove that she can win it herself, without a man giving it to her,” Krassenstein aware to his million followers X.

“We will have a female president. It’s just a matter of time. Don’t ruin the moment by doing it this way. This is not how it should happen.”

Harris has also seen a decline in approval ratings in recent weeks.

The vice president had an average net disapproval score of 1.4 points on September 29 (46.9 percent disapprove vs. 45.5 percent approve). On the eve of her election loss, Harris’s net disapproval score had risen to 4.9 points (49.2 percent disapprove vs. 44.3 percent approve).