Biden's average approval rating slips below 50% for the first time since taking office

• Biden's average approval rating has fallen below 50% for the first time since he took office.
• The president's FiveThirtyEight average approval rating declined to 49.3%, with 44.2% disapproving.
• As recently as July 26, Biden's FiveThirtyEight approval average sat at 52.7%.

President Joe Biden's average approval rating has fallen below 50% for the first time since he took office, according to the FiveThirtyEight and Real Clear Politics polling trackers.

The president's FiveThirtyEight average approval declined to 49.3%, while his disapproval rating sits at 44.2%.

Biden, whose presidency has largely been defined by his efforts to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, has seen his numbers slip with the emergence of the Delta variant.

However, for months, there has been a gradual decline in Biden's numbers in the FiveThirtyEight average - on February 22, shortly after taking office, his approval rating was at 54.7%, with 38.1% disapproving.

As recently as July 26, Biden's FiveThirtyEight approval average was 52.7%, with an average of 42.7% of respondents disapproving.

A FiveThirtyEight analysis also pointed out that the president's approval had been slipping among independent voters - an important part of his 2020 electoral coalition.

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Biden's approval rating on Monday slipped below 50% for the first time in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. It now sits at 49.4%, wth 47.2% disapproving of the president's performance.

That same day, Reuters/Ipsos released a poll showing that Biden's national approval rating had slipped to 46%, a notable dip from the president's 53% approval rating in its Friday polling.

The development comes after a weekend which saw the Afghan capital city of Kabul fall to the Taliban amidst the US withdrawing from the country nearly 20 years after the start of the Afghanistan war in 2001.

While support for the war had deteriorated precipitously over the years, the full scale of the reaction among the American electorate will likely continue to be revealed across polling in the coming days.

Looking back at Biden's immediate predecessors, former President Donald Trump had an approval rating of 37.8% in the FiveThirtyEight polling average on August 18, 2017, while his disapproval rating sat at 55.4%.

In a mid-August 2009 Gallup poll, former President Barack Obama had a 54% approval rating, with 40% disapproving, which was consistent with his Real Clear Politics at the time - which featured a polling average of 53.5% approval and 40.1% disapproval.