President Trump's Approval Rating Returns to Pre-Covid High, Signaling Trouble for Biden

The last time Trump hit 52 percent approval was in late February, weeks before coronavirus crisis kicked in.

An increasing number of Americans have started renewing their faith in President Donald Trump as the election day approaches. This has seen his approval rating steadily improve ahead of the 2020 election after negative views of his tenure having spiked earlier this year. According to a Rasmussen poll, Trump's rating has bounced back to its pre-Covid-19 high of 52 percent.

This is a significant jump given that Trump's approval rating has taken a major hit following the coronavirus outbreak. The past few months has seen Democrat candidate Joe Biden leading in almost all polls although things somewhat have started changing since the Republican National Convention held last month. The last time Trump hit 52 percent approval was late February.

Trump Bounces Back

Donald Trump and Joe Biden
Although most polls show Joe Biden still in the lead, his gap with Donald gap is narrowing significantly Twitter

According to a Rasmussenpoll approval rating, Trump had 52 percent on Friday, while 48 percent disapproved. Strong feelings for the president are even on both sides. While 42 percent strongly approve of the president's job, 42 percent strongly disapprove.

Trump has seen severe decline in approval rating during the summer when Biden had taken the lead. However, things started changing after the Republican National Convention, where Trump officially accepted the party's nomination to run in 2020. Since then Trump has seen incremental gains in his standing among the public.

According to Rasmussen, Trump had the highest approval rating of 53 percent in September 2019. That was by far one of the best approval ratings achieved by any presidential candidate in recent times. The highest former President Barack Obama had was 52 percent, in late January 2011.

Reason for Biden to Worry

Donald Trump
According to Rasmussen, Donald Trump had the highest approval rating of 53 percent in September 2019 YouTube / TIME

Biden has been enjoying high approval rating almost throughout the summer and is still leading in many polls. However, he has enough reasons to worry given the way Trump has bounced back in the past couple of weeks. Compared to Biden's high points in late June and early July, the race does seem to be closer. However, the story is still unclear, with the next few weeks being extremely crucial.

The last time Trump had reached an approval of 52 percent was in the late February, just a week before the coronavirus outbreak. Since then the equations had changed significantly as Trump had been facing backlash for the way he had been handling the coronavirus crisis. During April, May, June and July, when the coronavirus pandemic had reached its highest level, Trump had approval ratings in the low-to-mid 40s.

Although most polls show Biden still in the lead, the gap is narrowing significantly. Separate polling from Emerson Polling, conducted on August 30 and 31, also showed approval of Trump's work as president at 49 percent, up four points from similar polling in June, compared to 47 percent disapproving. According to FiveThirtyEight's tracker, Trump's average rating from polls is 53 percent disapproval compared with 44 approval.

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