Long story short: Big swings in presidential approval are probably a thing of the past. But small shifts in a president’s approval rating can still indicate meaningful changes in opinion that may foreshadow future electoral outcomes.3 For instance, the fact that Trump’s approval rating was stuck in the lows 40s for almost his entire presidency suggested real electoral vulnerability. And it was a big reason why Democrats flipped the House in the 2018 midterms and Trump didn’t win reelection in 2020. Had Trump managed to get his approval north of 45 percent by Election Day 2020, he very well may have won, considering the narrow margins in Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin and Republicans’ advantage in the Electoral College. We shouldn’t read too much into Biden’s approval rating at this point, but the fact that he is starting out in a stronger position than Trump, with an approval rating in the low 50s, is a good sign for him. If he can maintain an approval rating in that vicinity — or marginally raise it by a couple of points — that could help Democrats limit the typical midterm losses for the president’s party in 2022 and help Biden win reelection in 2024.

Beyond the national picture, state-level approval polling on other public officials, such as governors, is still quite useful, too. Sometimes we even see high or low marks for a governor that cut against expectations because, in state-level politics, partisanship doesn’t quite as automatically send voters to their blue and red corners as it does in national politics.