President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump are tied for favorability among U.S. adults, according to a Gallup survey published on January 9.
Forty-one percent of U.S. adults favor Joe Biden, down eight percentage points (49%) from October 2020. Likewise, his job approval rating declined, down by more than 15 points compared to his first year as president.
Trump has a favorability rating of 42%, down from October 2020 (45%). This is an improvement from lower ratings in 2021 and 2022 over his treatment of the 2020 election outcome and response to the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Both frontrunners have lost support from key demographics. Biden has seen the steepest drop in support among young and “non-white” adults. Trump has lost favorability with college graduates and Republicans.
“Since the 2020 election, Biden’s favorability has evolved — initially improving during his first year in office, as usually happens for winning candidates, but then plummeting by 2022, likely reflecting the decline in his job approval rating amid perceived policy failures” Lydia Saad, director of U.S. social research, writes. “His favorable rating has since remained at the lower level, with his image especially marred among young adults and people of color, a major concern for the Democratic Party since those are two key constituencies it needs to turn out to win.”
“Trump is not the direct beneficiary of all of Biden’s image woes, as his own favorable rating is slightly worse than at the time of the last election,” Saad continues. “But he has gained enough among people of color to nearly offset his nine-point decline in favorability among White adults.”
To read the full report, click here.
Director of The Raceless Gospel Initiative, an associate editor, host of the Good Faith Media podcast, “The Raceless Gospel” and author of Take Me to the Water: The Raceless Gospel as Baptismal Pedagogy for a Desegregated Church.