Former President Joe Biden is the least liked living president according to recent polling — nine points behind the second least liked — his predecessor and successor in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump.
In a Gallup poll of the five living presidents — Biden, Trump, Bill Clinton, George W Bush, and Barack Obama — Obama comes out on top with 59 percent having a favorable view of the 44th president.
Bush scored second place with a favorable rating of 52 percent, Clinton and Trump are tied at 48 percent, and Biden comes in last with 39 percent of respondents saying they have a favorable view of the 46th president.
Bush and Clinton had the highest percentage of respondents saying they had no opinion of them — 14 and 12 percent respectively.
The survey was conducted between January 21 and 27, just after Trump’s inauguration for his second term as president, where all four former presidents were present. All five also attended the funeral for President Jimmy Carter, who died at the age of 100, becoming the longest-living president.
Gallup noted that Trump and Biden’s ratings are “essentially unchanged” since the 2024 election.
Trump’s ratings are about equally favorable and unfavorable, but they still rank among his best since Gallup began measuring opinions of the 45th and 47th president in 1999.
“He has had only one net-positive rating to date – 50% favorable and 38% unfavorable – in 2005, when he was featured in the reality television show The Apprentice and before he entered Republican politics,” Gallup noted in its analysis.
During his first presidential campaign in 2015 and 2016, only an average of 33 percent of American adults had a favourable view of Trump. Forty-two percent had a favorable view of him following his 2016 election win over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. After his first inauguration, this number rose to 46 percent.
Trump’s first term saw his favorability rating remain mostly above 40 percent, dipping to 36 percent shortly before the end of his first term as Covid-19 infections rose and his supporters ransacked the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. His ratings rose once more to about 40 percent in July 2023 following his indictment in the federal classified documents case.
Biden now has a 39 percent favorable rating with 57 percent unfavorable rating, with Gallup calling it “barely better than his worst evaluation since he became a well-known political figure.”
In June last year, Biden had a 37 percent favorable rating and a 61 percent unfavorable rating amid concerns about his age and positions on issues as he took on Trump in the initial stages of the 2024 election. At the time, polls had him behind Trump.
Following his debate debacle on June 27, concerns about his age grew.
Biden notched his best rating in January 2017 when 61 percent of respondents had a favorable view of him at the end of his vice presidency. Right after being inaugurated as president in January 2021, he had a 59 percent favorable rating.
