Biden's approval rating rises to 56 percent in Fox News poll

Roughly 150 days into his presidency, President Biden's approval rating is 56 percent among voters, with 43 percent disapproving, according to a Fox News poll released Wednesday. That's an improvement from 54 percent in April and May polls from Fox News. Voters are especially pleased with Biden's pandemic response, the poll found, approving his handling of COVID-19 64 percent to 34 percent; his numbers were underwater on handling China, though, 39 percent to 54 percent.

What's "bonkers" about the poll, The Washington Post's David Weigel writes, is that Biden's numbers went up even with "voters agreeing with every Biden criticism. (Inflation! Taxes! Deficit!)"

Gallup similarly registered a 56 approval rating for Biden, but the RealClearPolitics (53 percent to 43 percent) and FiveThirtyEight (52 percent to 42 percent) polling averages had his numbers a little lower Thursday.

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The Fox News poll also asked voters about life in this stage of the pandemic. Half of respondents said they believe the coronavirus has permanently changed the way Americans live, while 42 percent said the changes are temporary, but 70 percent of voters said the shift to people working from home has been a positive development. A healthy 65 percent of voters said they have gotten the COVID-19 vaccine, and by a 51-42 percent margin, they said employers should be able to require workers to get inoculated.

The poll was conducted June 19-22 by Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Co. (R), who jointly interviewed 1,001 randomly selected registered voters nationwide by landline and cellphone. The total sample has a margin of sampling error of ±3 percentage points.