President Biden is leaving office with poor job and personal ratings, as voters continue to give bad signals about the economy — and say the White House has failed to make reforms.
A new poll by Fox News shows almost twice as many as many think The Biden administration made the economy worse rather than better, 52% vs. 28%. Also, almost all voters, 89%, say they are very worried or very concerned about inflation – up from 83% at the beginning of his term (2021).
Overall, 70% say the economy is in bad shape. While that's better than the high during Biden's term of 84% who disapproved in July 2022, it's also back to where things were at the beginning of his presidency when 69% said the same.
“Despite leading the world's strongest post-crisis economic recovery and making historic investments in infrastructure that will create millions of new jobs over the next decade, patients have clearly condemned that Biden's economic efforts are futile,” said Democratic pollster Chris Anderson. whose firm Beacon Research investigates Fox News along with Republican Daron Shaw. “Time will tell if history judges him differently.”
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Only 13% of voters say they are financially sustainable. Three times as many, 42%, feel left behind – and that's 15 points from the 27% who felt that way about four years ago.
Part of that increase is driven by Democrats, who are twice as likely to say they are behind today: 38% vs. 19% in June 2021.
And it's about 6 out of 10 Democrats 8 in 10 Republicans and 7 in 10 independents agree that the economy is in either good or bad shape.
“If polls are more about how voters think the incumbent party has done on the economy, it's easy to see why the Democrats lost the 2024 election,” says Shaw. “Unfortunately for Biden, he continues to underperform in terms of whether his policies have improved the bottom line, even among his base.”
When Biden left, 42% of voters approved of his job performance — just 2 percentage points above his record low.
Biden's approval rating is even lower Barack Obama (57%) and Bill Clinton (62%) at the end of their presidencies, but higher than George W. Bush (34%). Another 47% approved of Donald Trump at the end of his first term.
Biden's highest approval rating, 56%, came six months into his presidency (June 2021). His lowest approval rating, at 40%, came in three points during his tenure (July 2022, Nov. 2023, and Oct. 2024).
The average job rating for his entire presidency stands at 44% approval vs. 55% say no.
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Eighty percent of Democrats approve of Biden leaving, as do 35% of independents and 9% of Republicans. By comparison, at the 100-day mark of his presidency, 95% of Democrats approved, as did 42% of independents and 14% of Republicans.
Biden's views as a person are different from what he was when he was elected. At the end of 2020, some 59% of people had a positive opinion of him, while 39% had an unfavorable opinion. The final tally shows that 40% view him favorably and 59% unfavorably.
That makes him more popular Trump at the end of his first term (45% favorable, 54% unfavorable), and Obama (60-39%), Bush (49-46%), and Clinton (48-46%) at the end of their term of working.
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Trump's current favorable rating tells the story of the season: a record 50% of voters have a favorable view of him, and 50% view him negatively.
Conducted January 10-13, 2025 under the guidance of Beacon Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R), this Fox News survey includes interviews with a sample of 922 registered voters randomly selected from exit the state election file. Respondents spoke to interviewers by telephone (114) and cell phones (638) or completed an online survey after receiving the text (170). Results based on the full sample have a sampling error margin of ±3 percent. Sampling error associated with results among subgroups is high. In addition to sampling error, question wording and order can affect results. Aggregate weighting is applied by age, race, education, and geographic area to ensure that the number of respondents is representative of registered voters. Sources for developing the weighting targets include the American National Survey, Fox News Voter Analysis, and polling file data.
Fox News' Victoria Balara contributed to this report.