In the past more moderate leaders get very high approvals. Joe Biden ran as a moderate and seems to be governing like one. Even today you have this effect happen at the local level. Charlie Baker the governor of Massachusetts has higher approval with Democrats even though he ran as a Republican (!).

Yet Biden is a highly polarizing figure despite some of his efforts not to be. Obama for example had a far more volatile approval, but he was the last president to have such an elastic approval rating. It is approve by 9 on 538, which past approval vs election correlations show is very similar to Biden's margin in the popular vote.

*Why is Biden's approval so polarized while certain people are able to escape polarization at least partly, even at the federal level?*