Forty-six percent (46%) of U.S. voters have a favorable opinion of Vice President Joseph Biden, even as left-wing doyenne Arianna Huffington suggests he resign if President Obama ignores his advice and sends more troops to Afghanistan. That’s down four points from last month and ties August for the lowest such finding about the vice president since he took office in January.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 47% view Biden unfavorably. While 18% have a very favorable perception of the vice president, 24% regard him very unfavorably.

Positive views of Biden have ranged from a low of 46% to a high of 56% in early March. His unfavorables hit a low of 39% in early March but climbed as high as 50% in August.

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Biden is viewed favorably by 77% of Democrats, but just 23% of Republicans and 36% of voters not affiliated with either major party share that opinion.

Women voters like the vice president more than men. Voters 18 to 29 have a more positive opinion than their elders and African-Americans are more likely than white voters to offer a very favorable view of the longtime Delaware senator.

According to news reports, Biden has questioned the need for more troops in Afghanistan and has urged the president to adopt a more targeted approach, focusing on the terrorists in that country and neighboring Pakistan.

Forty-five percent (45%) of voters believe it is possible for the United States to win the eight-year-old war in Afghanistan. Twenty-nine percent (29%) do not. While 52% of voters continue to believe that no firm timetable should be set for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, Democrats are increasingly more supportive of a troop withdrawal than Republicans and unaffiliated voters.

Biden made a number of speaking gaffes in his early months in office, and voters in a July survey were evenly divided over whether he would be Obama’s running mate again in 2012.

In a speech to Congress in late February, Obama said Biden would lead “a tough, unprecedented oversight effort” to make sure taxpayer money is not wasted in any of the administration’s new spending plans. But 76% of Americans say it is at least somewhat likely that a large amount of money in the $787-billion economic stimulus plan will be wasted due to inadequate government oversight.

Biden resigned from the U.S. Senate when he was elected vice president last November, and his son Beau, Delaware’s current attorney general, is likely to run for the Senate seat in 2010. The first Rasmussen Reports Election 2010 survey in the state finds that longtime Republican Congressman Mike Castle beats Biden 47% to 42% in a hypothetical match-up for the seat his father held for 36 years.

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