Republican Party Gains Ground on Biden Approval Drop

After the U.S. troops' withdrawal from Afghanistan in August 2021, President Joe Biden's approval rating dropped from the mid-50s to the low 40s. So far, Biden hasn't been able to get back into the good graces of his constituents, who in the last weeks were experiencing record levels of inflation and a massive coronavirus surge in the last quarter of 2021. As our chart shows, this diminished approval coincides with a sharp drop in the number of Democrat-identifying and -leaning people in the United States throughout 2021.

Whereas an average of 49 percent of U.S. residents identified as a Democrat or a Democrat-leaning independent voter in the first three months of 2021, the economic and pandemic situation has enabled the Republican Party to gain the upper hand amongst those polled by Gallup in the fourth quarter of last year. In Q4 2021, 47 percent of survey respondents identified either as Republican or were leaning towards the Republican Party. Overall, the Democratic Party still managed a net approval of 46 percent in 2021, three percentage points more than their political opposition. This is par for the course when taking into account approval ratings from 1992 onward, where the party of Barack Obama and Bill Clinton always managed to score higher than their counterpart with the exception of 2002, 2003 and 2011. Still, last year's approval gap is a far cry from most of the second Bush term, where the incumbent president and his party faced extended scrutiny for their response to Hurricane Katrina and the handling of the Iraq War and abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

According to Gallup data, the key voter group lies between party lines. In 2021, 42 percent of respondents identified as independent as opposed to 29 percent Democrats and 27 percent Republicans. The independent share of prospective voters has continually grown since the late 80s and has largely stayed over 40 percent since 2011.