Biden's Approval Rating Among Religious Groups in 2023

Things are looking bleak for a Biden second term

One thing I try my best to avoid is posts that are just big dump of graphs that are repetitive. I think that social science, at its best, is story telling with better methods. We have a question, we have data, we have the tools to analyze that data, and it helps us understand the world around us. All good dissertations start with a puzzle and end with a resolution.

I guess there is a question that motivates this post but it’s about as simple as it’s going to get - How is Joe Biden doing among a bunch of different religious groups?

I did a post about it late last year, but I feel like it’s absolutely essential that I take stock of this situation given that there’s an election happening in November.

I had to just give you all a big graph dump with the same type of graph over and over again, but consider this more of an encyclopedia entry than what you typically see from me. It’s more of a reference to come back to than anything else.

Asking about presidential approval is about as straightforward as it gets and there are four response options ranging from strongly disapprove to strongly approve. The question was posed in the Fall of 2021, 2022, and 2023. Let’s get to it.

This should come as no surprise to anyone - white evangelicals do not like President Biden. They never really did and they certainly don’t like him now. His approval rating in 2023 was 18%. But on the positive side for him, the ‘strongly disapprove’ column got a bit smaller. It was only 71% in 2023, down about three points from prior surveys.

Non-white evangelicals are a much different story and very much a mixed bag. In 2021, Biden was barely underwater with this group: 48% approval - 52% disapproval. It was the same in 2022. In the most recent data his unfavorables have crept up to 55%. That’s not a good sign for a president who needs to win in places like Arizona. Going from -4 to -10 among non-white evangelicals should be a bit of wake-up call to his reelection team.

Among mainline Protestants, Biden is underwater. He’s always been underwater. This is something that I can’t write about enough - there is no huge voting bloc of super liberal mainline Protestants out there. Certainly the leadership of these denominations are farther to the left, but the average Lutheran in rural Minnesota does not love Joe Biden. His approval rating was 43% in 2021 and it’s 43% in 2023. About half of mainline Protestants strongly disapprove of his job performance. (That’s the stat I am going to use when giving talks about the mainline now, by the way.)

And there’s not a bunch of good news for the Democrats when looking at Black Protestants, either. In fact, this is very bad news for the incumbent. He was +60 among Black Protestants in 2021. That has now declined to +42. That is certainly a positive tilt, but Black Protestants seem less enamored with the President today than they did when he was first elected. His strongly approval percentage dropped from 37% to 30% between 2021 and 2023.

It’s striking to me how much the white Catholic graph looks like the one from mainline Protestants. They just don’t like him very much, either. In fact, 60% of them disapprove of his job performance now. But that’s actually a slight improvement of his numbers from 2021 when it was 64%. The 2023 statistics do point toward some inroads, but Biden is still -20 among white Catholics. And do I need to remind anyone that Biden is a white Catholic?

His head is above water among Catholics of color, but that is trending in the wrong direction. His approval rating was 63% in 2021. It was 56% in both 2022 and 2023. His strongly disapprove percentage is about a quarter of non-white Catholics, while his strongly approve has dropped by a full ten percentage points between 2021 and 2023. Again - things are moving in the wrong direction if you want to see Biden win a second term.

If white evangelicals are the group that likes President Biden the least, Latter-day Saints aren’t far behind. And that disdain is increasing. In 2021, 54% strongly disapproved of the president’s job performance. That increased to 63% in the most recent data. His job approval was 31% in 2021 among the LDS. It’s now down to 20%. That’s functionally the same as white evangelicals at 18% approval. I don’t see any evidence here that Mormons are going to move significantly towards the Democrats in this election.

Orthodox Christians are hard to sort out, really. Their approval was 30% in 2021. It was 32% in 2023. One big shift is that Biden’s strong disapproval figure was 58% in 2021. It has dropped by ten percentage points in the last two surveys and is solidly below half. But he’s still underwater by more than thirty percentage points among Orthodox Christians.

Jewish people still feel pretty good about President Biden. His approval rating was 57% in the latest data collected, which is essentially the same as it was back in 2021. There’s honestly not much to report here - Jewish views of Biden are rock solid and he’s still clearly doing well with this voting bloc.

Muslims are another story entirely though. In 2021, his approval rating was nearly 70% among Muslims in the survey. His strong disapproval percentage was very low - just 12%. But he has lost ground over time. Now his approval rating is only 57%. He’s +15 now. He was +39 just two years prior to that. I may dig into this a bit more in a full post in the future.

Biden is not doing well among Buddhists either. His approval was 58% in 2021 and now it’s down to 51%. But it’s a bit weird because his strongly disapprove number has actually shrunk from 27% to 22%. That may be a weird quirk in the data. And for Hindus, Biden has lost a bit of ground, too. His approval is down by about nine points between 2021 and 2023.

What about the nones? This is a key constituency for the Democrats now. Remember that 45% of all the votes cast for Joe Biden in 2020 came from atheists, agnostics, or nothing in particulars.

Biden’s approval took a huge hit in 2023 among atheists. He was riding high for most of his presidency, with about seven in ten atheists approving of his job performance in 2021 and 2022. Now, it’s down to only 60%. His strongly disapprove number jumped by 6-7 points in 2023 alone. Atheists still think Biden is doing a good job, but it’s +20 now not +40.

The portrait for agnostics is pretty similar, too. Approval went from 61% in 2021 to just 52% in 2023. And that all basically happened in the last year. There’s no doubt that opinion of Biden had soured significantly among atheists and agnostics between 2022 and 2023.

For nothing in particulars, they were evenly split on Biden’s job approval in 2021. 49% approve and 51% disapprove. Although, it’s crucial to point out that the strongly disapprove was twice the size of strongly approve (35% vs 17%). This voting bloc is less enamored with Biden now, too. His approval has slipped to 42% and his strongly disapprove number has crept up to 41%. That’s a lot of people who really don’t like how the president is handling his job.

It’s hard to look at these numbers and point to any religious group that feels more warmly toward President Biden today than they did back in 2021. There are some that have held steady, but none that are clearly trending in his direction.

Let me make two points about this.

1. There’s a theory in public opinion called “the coalition of minorities.” John Mueller argues that presidential approval will inevitably wane over time. The reason for this is that the president has to make decisions. Those choices will make some people happy and will upset others. Eventually those decisions pile up and if each stance makes 1% of the public unhappy, you can see where this is going. It’s basically impossible to govern in such a way to increase your support over time.

2. There are lots of people who will cast a ballot for Joe Biden in 2024 who think he is not doing a good job. They won’t be necessarily voting for Joe Biden, they will be voting against Donald Trump. It’s called negative partisanship. Among atheists, 39% of them disapprove of Joe Biden’s job performance right now. Biden got 87% of the atheist vote in 2020. He will likely do just as well in 2024.

But that’s not to say that Biden shouldn’t be worried here. He is losing ground with a whole bunch of groups that he needs to win a second term - mainline Protestants. Black Protestants, non-white evangelicals. The only thing that may save him is the other person on the ballot.

Code for this post can be found here.