Joe Manchin's approval rating has jumped 16 points in West Virginia since Biden took office

• Joe Manchin has seen his approval rating surge over the past year from 40% to 57%.
• The double-digit increase was the largest improvement in approval rating of any senator, Morning Consult found.

Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who has had an outsized influence over President Joe Biden's agenda, has dramatically impressed voters back home, according to a new poll released Monday.

The centrist lawmaker's approval rating jumped from 40% to 57% in West Virginia over the past year — the biggest increase of any senator, Morning Consult found.

The double-digit boost largely stems from West Virginia Republicans. At the beginning of Biden's term, only 35% of GOP voters in the red state approved of Manchin. Now, that figure has nearly doubled, with 69% of Republicans in support of his job performance.

Manchin's standing among independent voters also significantly improved, with his approval rating rising from 31% to 50%. At the same time, Manchin has disappointed Democrats in West Virginia, 44% of whom approve of him — a 19-percentage point decline.

Manchin's popularity places him within the top 10 most popular American senators, according to Morning Consult. Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota is in first place, followed by Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, and Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota. Sanders saw his approval rating decrease by 8 percentage points in the past year.

Manchin's increased approval rating comes as he's faced backlash from the progressive wing in his party over his policy positions. Within the past year, the moderate Democrat opposed major domestic plans pushed by the Biden administration, including voting rights legislation and a sweeping social spending package known as Build Back Better. Manchin also repeatedly stood against lowering the 60-vote Senate filibuster requirement, crushing Democrats' goals to advance several of their priorities on party-line votes.

Some Senate Republicans have signaled that Manchin should switch parties, a move that would tip Senate control to the GOP. Manchin, a longtime Democrat who's served in the Senate since 2010, has on multiple occasions shut down rumors that he'll change his political affiliation. Despite his high-profile holdouts, Manchin has voted with Biden 95% of the time, according to a FiveThirtyEight tracker.

Morning Consult surveyed around 2,057 registered West Virginia voters in the first quarters of 2021 and 2022 with a margin of error of 2 percentage points.