(CNN) President Joe Biden's political honeymoon lasted six months. His messy marriage with the American public has now lasted almost twice as long.
An analysis of Gallup's polling on Biden's job approval ratings since his January 2021 inauguration reveals that the President's middling numbers are remarkably consistent over the past year.
The last time that Biden had the approval of a majority of the American public in a Gallup survey was in July 2021 (Biden's approval was right at 50%). The last time Biden's job approval rating was higher than 45% in Gallup's polling was August 2021, when it stood at 49%.
Since last August -- so 10 months -- Biden's job approval in Gallup polling has never been higher than 43%. In fact, Biden's poll numbers have been both consistent and consistently bad for the entirety of 2022. Here's a look at all the Gallup polling so far this year:
* January: 40% job approval
* February: 41%
* March: 42%
* April: 41%
* May: 41%
Like I said: Remarkably consistent.
And that's not just confirmed in Gallup polling. CNN has measured Biden's approval rating twice so far in 2022. In the first poll, at the end of January and beginning of February, Biden's job approval rating was 41%. In the second poll, in the field in late April and early May, Biden was, again, at 41%.The last time CNN had Biden at or over 50%? In October 2021, when his approval rating was right at 50%.
Here's a fun fact: Biden's current approval rating in Gallup's polling (41%) is slightly lower than where Donald Trump's was (42%) at a similar stage of his presidency.
The Trump comparison isn't just a one-off, either. The trajectory of Biden's approval rating to date in his presidency bears a striking resemblance to Trump's.
To be clear: Biden started off at a higher point than Trump. Biden's initial job approval rating measured by Gallup at the end of January and early February 2021 was 57%. At the beginning of Trump's presidency, he was at just 44%.
But if you compare the second year of the Biden presidency, it looks a whole lot like the second year of the Trump presidency -- from a public opinion perspective, at least. Here's what Trump's approval ratings looked like in Gallup's surveys for the first five months of 2018:
* January-February: 39%
* February-April: 39%
* April: 40%
* April-May 42%
That comparison should worry every single Democrat on the ballot this fall. Why? Because Trump's approval rating never substantially improved between May 2018 and the midterm election later that year. Democrats went on to take control of the House.
In fact, according to Gallup, the average seat loss for a president's party when their job approval rating was under 50% was 37 House seats as of 2018. If Democrats lose anything close to that number, they won't just give up their majority, they will have an uphill battle to taking back House control in 2024.
The simple fact is that it is incredibly difficult for a president's approval rating to drastically improve after a prolonged period of middling numbers in a very short period of time. And looking at the political landscape, that's exactly what Democrats need.