“If we recall how things were a year ago at this time, the vaccines were just being rolled out and there was a tremendous amount of optimism that the end of the pandemic was near,” said David Hopkins, a political scientist at Boston College. “That’s the way that the media and Biden portrayed the situation.” But, Hopkins said, the rise of the delta and omicron variants of COVID-19 were an unwelcome surprise that frustrated Americans. “Even though it’s not fair to blame Biden for the mutations of a virus, it does seem that he hasn’t been able to deliver on the ‘better days are ahead’ message he promised everyone a year ago.”

Things didn’t improve once fall rolled around, either. In fact, polling suggests that Biden’s standing among all voters — most notably Democrats — got even worse as time went on.

By November, most polls had Biden’s overall approval rating underwater. It wasn’t just that Americans were upset at his handling of the ongoing pandemic or inflation or a stalled legislative agenda — they also became less likely to trust that things would get better under his administration. That lack of satisfaction among Democrats was perhaps most startling, though. According to YouGov, Democrats’ happiness with the new administration continued to fade in the winter months and into this year as well. By January 2022, a Pew poll found that Democrats’ confidence in Biden’s ability to handle the pandemic and the economy, as well as other issues like immigration and criminal justice, had fallen substantially since soon after he took office.