According to a new Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) survey, conducted by pollster TIPP, Biden’s approval rating has risen to 49.1 percent, only marginally lower than his disapproval rating of 50.9 percent, once undecided voters are excluded.
This gives Biden a net approval rating of minus two, up from minus nine in December 2022 when the monthly survey was last conducted.
The IBD/TIPP survey, of 1,200 American adults, was conducted online between January 4 and January 6.
This new data follows a trend mapped out by polling aggregation website FiveThirtyEight, which was founded by election guru Nate Silver.
The website calculated a poll of polls for Biden’s approval, made by aggregating all “legitimately conducted scientific polls” to produce a single result.
On January 10, FiveThirtyEight’s poll of polls showed 43.8 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s performance, versus 51.5 percent who disapprove, with the remainder undecided.
The website shows Biden’s approval has risen significantly from its low point on July 21, 2022 when just 37.5 percent of Americans approved of his record, against 57.2 percent who disapproved.
However, Biden still hasn’t recorded a positive approval rating on FiveThirtyEight’s poll of polls since August 29, 2021, when he recorded 47.2 percent approval versus 46.9 percent disapproval. That month, which saw Afghanistan fall to the Taliban in an embarrassing blow to the U.S., saw a dramatic fall in Biden’s ratings.
On Monday, Richard Sauber, Biden’s special counsel, admitted that a “small number” of classified documents relating to his time as vice president had been found locked up in an office at the Penn Biden Center, which Biden had used “periodically” from 2017 to 2020.
Sauber said the Biden administration was “cooperating” with the National Archives and the Department of Justice to get the documents returned.
Donald Trump, on his Truth Social website, suggested the FBI should now raid the White House.
He commented: “When is the FBI going to raid the many homes of Joe Biden, perhaps even the White House? These documents were definitely not declassified.”
On August 8, 2022, the FBI raided Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, recovering several boxes containing classified documents.
At the time Biden condemned Trump’s behavior, commenting: “How that could possibly happen, how anyone could be that irresponsible.
“And I thought what data was in there that may compromise sources and methods. By that, I mean, names of people who helped or et cetera. And it’s just totally irresponsible.”
Responding to the latest document find, Republican congressman James Comer said: “President Biden has stated that taking classified documents from the White House is ‘irresponsible.’
“Under the Biden Administration, the Department of Justice and National Archives have made compliance with the Presidential Records Act a top priority. We expect the same treatment for President Biden, who has apparently inappropriately maintained classified documents in an insecure setting for several years.”
