President Joe Biden is leaving office with a slightly higher approval rating than Donald Trump after his first term, a new poll shows.
The outgoing president’s final approval rating is 36 percent compared to Trump, who had a rating of 34 percent when he left the White House in 2021, the CNN poll conducted by SSRS found.
However, Biden’s four years in office are regarded by Americans more as a failure (61 percent) than a success (38 percent), the poll found.
Comparatively, 65 percent of Americans viewed Barack Obama’s presidency as a success in early 2017 while 68 percent viewed Bill Clinton’s a success. Biden is, however, doing better than George W. Bush whose presidency was viewed as a failure by 68 percent of Americans when he left office in 2009, according to CNN.
When it comes to his performance on immigration, 31 percent of adults in the U.S. said they approved of the way Biden handled the issue. Only 33 percent approve of the way Biden dealt with the economy in what has been a difficult few years as families struggled to afford groceries and saw their household bills increase significantly.
Biden performed better on key issues of protecting American democracy (46 percent) and environmental policy (44 percent.) On health care policies, 43 percent approved of how Biden performed during his term, and 32 percent approve of his handling of foreign affairs.
Biden’s favorability rating is close to a personal low. His rating, which measures personal feelings over job performance, is 33 percent favorable to 58 percent unfavorable. In June 2023 Biden’s favorability rating was 32 percent.
Americans surveyed in the poll believe the failures were down to Biden personally (42 percent) more than circumstances beyond his control.
In the same poll four years ago, a majority of Americans (54 percent) said they believed that Trump should be removed from office before January 20 because of his role in the January 6 Capitol riots.
Trump’s approval rating plummeted from 42 percent in CNN’s pre-election poll to 34 percent by the end of his first term.
Another poll by the network found that 54 percent of Americans expect Trump to do a good job when he resumes office next week, while 55 percent said they approved of how the president-elect has handled the transition period so far.
