Yes, it feels like President Biden is having himself a bit of a political honeymoon since taking office less than a week ago.
His approval rating is well above 50 percent. His cabinet nominees have been sailing through the Senate by huge margins. His conservative detractors haven’t found one major mess up so far to drive news coverage, so they have largely been arguing amongst themselves about the future of the Republican Party and conservatism.
And with coronavirus cases dropping in nearly every state around the country, it doesn’t appear that Biden’s fortunes will change any time soon.
Still, while it might feel like Biden is having a honeymoon period, the numbers suggest that he is fully in the “normal” range for a president, regardless of where he is in his term. It is just that Trump was so uniquely unpopular that experiencing a president above a 50 percent approval rating is perceived to be something it is not.
There have been very few polls since Biden took office last week. However, one by Morning Consult puts Biden’s approval rating at 56 percent, a full 10 points better than where Trump was at a similar point after taking office in 2017. (Locally, a University of New Hampshire poll released Tuesday found Biden had a 55 percent approval rating in the swing state he won by nearly 8 percentage points.)
Trump would go on to have the most unpopular presidency in the history of polling, going back to 1938. When he left office last week, two weeks after a riot on Capitol Hill that he was impeached for causing, his approval ratings stood at 33 percent.
So, yes, when new president is sworn in and suddenly has an approval rating 23 points higher than his predecessor, it does feel like something different.
Compared to other presidents, however, Biden’s standing doesn’t seem all that remarkable. Barack Obama averaged an approval rating of around 68 percent for his first three months in office. George W. Bush initially had ratings around 60 percent in his first month in office. From Harry Truman through Ronald Reagan, presidents’ first years featured approval ratings in the 60 percent to 70 percent range.
In fairness, this isn’t a commentary on Biden. In these polarized times, no incoming president in 2021 would have an approval rating near 70 percent unless something dramatic happened in the first few days. On the flip side, any president following Trump would also probably do better in public opinion polls compared to Trump’s historic unpopularity.
These polls matter because of their ability to influence the power of a president to enact an agenda. Interestingly, other factors mean this is not really an issue with Biden. He wasn’t elected on a particular policy platform. And while Congress is in Democratic hands, its close split is not going to allow for a lot of big, bold things to happen, even if Biden had more of a political honeymoon.
So for the moment, Biden was robbed of a full-blown inauguration, and has no honeymoon and a slate of huge problems to solve on his desk. He’ll just have to slug it out and get through it — like most Americans in 2021.
James Pindell can be reached at james.pindell@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @jamespindell.