Ipsos Core Political : Presidential Approval Tracker (01/20/2022)

Washington, DC, January 20, 2022 – According to this week’s Ipsos’ Core Political, President Joe Biden is ending his first year as president with his lowest approval rating yet, and with nearly two-thirds of Americans believing the country is off on the wrong track.

Three out of five Americans (62%) believe the country is off on the wrong track, a sentiment most strongly shared by Republicans (87%) and independents (56%). Democrats are evenly split, with 43% reporting the country is headed in the right direction and 44% who feel the country is off on the wrong track. At this time last year, 27% of Americans believed we were headed in the right direction, while 54% thought we were off on the wrong track.

Americans remain most concerned about the economy (24%), public health (13%), the healthcare system (12%), and crime (9%). This is similar to what we saw at this time last year when the economy (19%), healthcare (16%), and unemployment (12%) were the top concerns.

Republicans (32%) and independents (27%) are most concerned about the economy. Immigration is in distant second place (14%) for Republicans and the healthcare system (19%) is the next most important issue for independents. Meanwhile, Democrats are evenly split in their belief that public health (18%) and the economy (17%) are the most important issues.

President Biden ends his first year as president with just 43% of Americans approving, 12 points lower than when he was inaugurated (55%).

President Biden has seen his approval rating decrease among both major parties. Among Democrats he started his presidency with a 91% approval rating, it is now 77% (down 14 points). Among Republicans it was 21%, it is now 8% (down 13 points).

About the Study

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted between January 19-20, 2022. For this survey, a sample of 1,004 Americans age 18+ from the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii were interviewed online in English. The sample includes 453 Democrats, 365 Republicans, and 115 independents. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Americans been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including but not limited to coverage error and measurement error. The poll also has a credibility interval of ± 5.2 percentage points for Democrats, ± 5.8 percentage points for Republicans, and ± 10.4 percentage points for independents.  

For more information on this news release, please contact:

Chris Jackson
Senior Vice President, US
Public Affairs
+1 202 420-2025
[email protected]

Kate Silverstein
Media Relations, US
Public Affairs
+1 718 755-8829
[email protected]

About Ipsos

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Our passionately curious research professionals, analysts, and scientists have built unique multi-specialist capabilities that provide true understanding and powerful insights into the actions, opinions, and motivations of citizens, consumers, patients, customers, or employees. We serve more than 5,000 clients across the world with 75 business solutions.

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