Biden’s approval rating jumped five points from a similar poll taken in March and is 20 percentage points higher than that of former President Trump’s in a Pew poll from April 2017.
Biden continues to get praise from most Americans over his handling of the coronavirus pandemic, with 72 percent of Americans saying the Biden administration has done an excellent or good job managing vaccine production and distribution, according to the Pew Research Poll.
Interestingly, Americans also approve of how Biden conducts himself, and his rhetoric, overall. After four tumultuous years of heated political rhetoric coming out of the White House, far more Americans say they like the way Biden conducts himself as president (46 percent) than say they don’t (27 percent), while another 27 percent have mixed feelings about his conduct.
However, 44 percent of Americans say Biden has changed the tone of political debate for the better, while 29 percent say he has made the tone of debate worse. As for the president’s conduct in office and his rhetoric, there are stark differences between Biden and Trump, and the public polls point this out.
Last year, just 15 percent said they liked the way Trump conducted himself as president, which was little changed from telephone surveys dating to 2017. In both 2020 and 2019, majorities – 55 percent on each occasion – said Trump had changed the political debate in the U.S. for the worse.
NBC News cites three other polls this week that also have Biden’s approval rating “above water,” with Quinnipiac’s survey coming in as the lowest of those at 48 percent.
The biggest sticking point is immigration, with both Republicans and Democrats saying illegal immigration is “a very big problem” – an increase from last year’s poll. Another Biden move that is not wildly popular is his plan to withdraw all American troops from Afghanistan, which has gotten mixed results.
The biggest takeaway from this poll is that it shows the difference in leadership between Biden and his predecessor. Biden tries not to push any policies that aren’t popular with the public, while Trump pushed policies that appealed to his base, rather than the majority of the public.
The Pew poll surveyed 5,109 adults from April 5 to 11, which was days before the Biden administration recommended pausing the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. The poll has a margin of error of 2.1 percentage points.
