Biden approval rating down to 39 percent in new poll

President Biden’s approval rating is down to 39 percent, according to a new USA TODAY-Suffolk poll, marking another dismal survey for the president amid high inflation and rising gas prices.

The poll, which was published on Friday, also showed that 47 percent of respondents “strongly” disapprove of his job performance as president, which is up from 44 percent who strongly disapproved in a February poll.

Only 16 percent of respondents “strongly” approve of his job performance, according to the poll released on Friday. Seventy-one percent of Americans polled said that the U.S. is “on the wrong track” and only 16 percent thought it was headed in the right direction.

Biden has hit below 40 percent approval rating in a few other recent polls, including in a Reuters-Ipsos poll published this week and last week in a Morning Consult poll, which was an all-time low at the time in that survey.

Polling also showed Biden’s approval rating dropped for its third straight week this week, which points to a tough month for the president, who is challenged with soaring costs.

Biden, in an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, addressed the sour mood of the public amid high inflation in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates at the quickest pace in nearly 30 years.

“People are really, really down,” Biden said.

“They’re really down,” he added. “The need for mental health in America, it has skyrocketed, because people have seen everything upset. Everything they’ve counted on upset. But most of it’s the consequence of what’s happened, what happened as a consequence of the COVID crisis.”

The president is heading into the midterms contending with soaring inflation, as well as Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine, multiple recent mass shootings and a pending Supreme Court decision likely overturning Roe v. Wade.

The latest USA TODAY-Suffolk poll was conducted on June 12 through 15 and among a total of 1,000 respondents. The margin of error in the poll was 3.1 percentage points.