CNN
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President Joe Biden will leave office with his approval rating remaining at the lowest level of his term and his approval rating near a personal low, according to a new CNN poll by SSRS. Americans generally view Biden’s four years in office more as a failure than a success, with his administration doing little to reverse lingering negativity about the state of the country in general or its economy.
Overall, 36% of American adults say they approve of how Biden has handled the presidency, matching his previous low rating in CNN polls during his term, and even fewer rate his performance positively on immigration (31%), foreign affairs (32%). or the economy (33%). His biggest issues in terms of approval ratings still yield net negative results, with less than half saying they approve of how he has protected American democracy (46%), handled environmental policy (44%), or dealt with health policies (43%). ).
Biden’s approval rating, a measure of personal feelings rather than job performance, stands at 33% favorable to 58% unfavorable, just one point shy of his previous lowest in CNN polls since he was elected. became vice president under Barack Obama in 2009 (he reached this figure of 32%). in June 2023). His popularity ratings have remained mired in the 30s for much of the past two years.
First lady Jill Biden leaves the White House with a largely neutral favorability rating, about the same as she has been since 2022 – 33% view her favorably and 31% unfavorably, and 35% don’t know what they think of her .
Vice President Kamala Harris leaves office with higher approval ratings than she had shortly before entering last year’s presidential race in July, following Biden’s announcement that he would withdraw from the race – 39% now have a favorable opinion compared to 29% in June – but perceptions about him are still underwater, with about half having a negative opinion (50%). At the start of the Biden presidency in January 2021, Harris’s ratings stood at 51% favorable and 39% unfavorable.
Most Americans, 61%, say they view Biden’s presidency as a failure overall, and 38% view it as a success. This is far behind two presidencies widely considered successful: that of Bill Clinton (68% considered it a success in 2000) and that of Barack Obama (65% considered it a success in early 2017). Biden’s tenure, however, is longer than that of George W. Bush, whom 68% of Americans considered more of a failure than a success when he left office in 2009.
Whether they consider Biden’s term a success or a failure, most say his performance was due more to his own personal actions than to circumstances beyond his control. Overall, 42% of Americans say Biden’s era was more of a failure due to personal flaws and 23% say it was a success that relied on his personal strengths. About 1 in 5 (19%) say his presidency failed due to external circumstances, and 15% say he was successful because of that.
Among Democrats, Biden’s approval rating at the end of his term stands at 71%, the lowest rate among his own supporters in a national CNN poll during his tenure. Among independents, 31% now approve of Biden’s handling of the presidency, and 8% of Republicans say the same. Biden has rarely managed to push that number into double digits among Republicans, reaching 10% or more among Republicans in just three CNN polls during that span. Among political independents, his approval rating fell below 40% in May 2023 and never rose that high again; he has only had one poll (April 2021, around 100 days into his presidency) that found majority approval among independents.
Biden’s presidency never overcame the deeply negative feelings about the way things are going in the country. When he entered the White House in January 2021, only 22% of respondents said things were going at least somewhat well in the United States – the second most negative rating in a presidential transition in the trends of CNN on this issue dates back to 1981, when Ronald Reagan took power after defeating Jimmy Carter (20% in December 2008, before Obama’s presidency, is the lowest rating). That figure never rose above 39% during Biden’s entire term and stands at just 29% today, with 71% saying things are bad.
At the same time, a brief improvement in opinions about the country’s economic situation at the start of Biden’s term worsened when prices of everyday consumer goods began to rise in 2021, with opinions about the economy remaining negative even if inflation rates fell and unemployment remained low. . The share of people saying economic conditions were good rose from 43% just before Biden’s inauguration to 54% around the 100-day mark, but quickly fell back to 37% by the end of 2021. Today , only 28% say the economy is in good health. form, with 72% saying it is in poor condition. Biden’s approval rating for handling the economy has remained below 40% in CNN polls since the start of 2022.
There’s a predictable partisan divide in how Americans view Biden’s use of presidential power: 68% of Republicans say he went too far, while just 6% of Democrats agree. view. But within Biden’s party, there is a division over whether he got the balance right (51%) or failed to use it enough (44%). This divide among Democratic-aligned Americans is even more notable by age: a slim majority of young Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents say Biden hasn’t gone far enough (51%), although most Americans aged 45 or older who align with the Democratic Party. The party believes it did the right thing (56%).
The CNN poll was conducted by SSRS Jan. 9-12 among a random national sample of 1,205 adults drawn from a probability panel. Surveys were conducted either online or over the phone with a live interviewer. Results among the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.2 percentage points.
CNN’s Ariel Edwards-Levy and Edward Wu contributed to this report.