President Biden’s approval rating has tumbled amid questions that he may have mishandled classified government documents dating back to his time as vice president, according to a new poll released Wednesday.
A Reuters-Ipsos poll found that 40% of Americans approve of Mr. Biden’s job performance, a sharp drop from 44.1% who approved of his performance in the same poll conducted earlier this month.
The 40% approval rating approaches Mr. Biden’s lowest, which was 36% in May and June.
White House principal deputy spokesperson Olivia Dalton shrugged off the poll numbers.
“There is other polling out there that shows the president’s support continues to grow,” she told reporters on Air Force One.
The three-day poll concluded on Sunday, the day after the White House announced two more batches of classified documents were discovered at Mr. Biden’s Wilmington, Delaware, home.
Republicans in Congress have blasted the president after the White House announced this month that Mr. Biden’s personal lawyers found classified documents at his residence and a former District of Columbia office he used after he finished his term as vice president.
They accused Mr. Biden’s team of withholding information from the public and claimed there was a double standard because the Justice Department was already probing former President Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence.
The White House insists it’s limited in how much it can say about the documents because of the Justice Department investigation. Earlier this month, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate the matter.
The Reuters-Ipsos poll was conducted Jan. 13-15, interviewing 1,035 respondents. The margin of error in the poll is plus or minus 3 percentage points.