Perhaps as expected, Joe Biden's third-year job approval is the lowest seen by a president since Jimmy Carter in 1979.

According to the latest Gallup poll, Biden's overall approval rating from between January 20th, 2023, and January 19th, 2024 sits at just 39.8 percent, second only to the famously incompetent Jimmy Carter. 

Gallup explains:

Biden’s third-year average was lower than both his first-year (48.9%) and second-year (41.0%) averages. Though better than his third-year average, his first- and second-year ratings also ranked as the second lowest for recent presidents, ahead of only Trump in both years.

Biden registered new personal lows of 37% job approval in April, October and November 2023 surveys.

Gallup’s latest job approval rating for Biden, from a Jan. 2-22 survey, is 41%, while 54% disapprove of how he is performing his job. Since September 2021, after the troubled withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Biden’s approval rating has ranged from the high 30s to low 40s. Before that, during the first six months of his presidency, he enjoyed majority-level approval ratings.

The pollster also notes that some presidents tend to see an increase in job approval over the course of their final year, although this is by no means guaranteed.

The likes of Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and Barack Obama all saw meaningful increases in their fourth year and all won re-election.

Others, including Jimmy Carter and Donald Trump, stayed roughly the same and went on to lose re-election. Both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush saw their popularity nosedive, although the younger Bush still managed to prevail in his re-election campaign. 

Gallup's analysis also notes that, unlike previous presidencies, both Trump and Biden have seen their approval ratings depend heavily on partisan identification. A staggering 89 percent of Republicans approved of Donald Trump's third year in office, while just seven percent of Democrats felt the same way.

Meanwhile, Democrats still overwhelmingly approve of Joe Biden's performance by 83 percent, while just five percent of Republicans agree he is performing well. The data therefore points to the importance of independents in this year's election. 

The pollster explains that Biden's job approval rating is well below the 50 percent that a president normally requires for successful re-election, meaning that it does not bode well for his chances this November.

Gallup notes: 

The president may see some modest gains in approval if the Democrats who disapprove of him come back into the fold. That pattern typically occurs in a presidential election year -- among prior presidents, all but the two Bushes saw higher ratings from their party’s supporters in their third than fourth year in office.

However, the key to Biden’s winning reelection may lie more in convincing a larger share of independents that he is doing a good job and is deserving of a second term. His approval rating among independents has mostly been below 40% since the fall of 2021 but was above 50% during the honeymoon phase of his presidency.

Of course, no one knows what will happen come November and whether Biden or Trump will even still be on their party's respective tickets. 

What we do know for sure, however, is that historically speaking Biden is an extremely unpopular president.