President Joe Biden is enjoying relatively good and stable job approval ratings six months into his first year in office, but the political actors at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue cannot say the same. Gallup tracking found that Congress’s approval rating fell to 26% in June, down from 31% in May, 33% in April, 36% in March, and 35% in February.
June’s numbers are driven by a sharp decline in approval among Democrats. In May, 54% of Democrats approved of the job Congress was doing. Today only 38% say the same. Democrats are likely disappointed in Congress’s failure to pass more of their party’s ambitious agenda. Republicans and increasingly Independents are likely concerned they just might do so. Only time will tell how Congressional Democrats react to these declining job approval numbers. How they react to them is likely to have big ramifications for the midterms and the course of the country.
