US voters look more favorably on Trump’s presidency

A CBS News survey has found that Americans rate President Joe Biden’s performance as worse than that of his predecessor

US voters gave former President Donald Trump’s one term in office far higher marks than their rating for current leader Joe Biden, a new poll has found.

A CBS News survey of 2,159 adults, released on Sunday, found that 46% of registered voters rated Trump’s presidency as “excellent” or “good,” versus 53% who viewed his term as “fair” or “poor.” By comparison, just 33% gave a positive rating to Biden’s presidency so far, while 67% disapproved.

Americans are largely gloomy about the outlook for their country heading into this year’s presidential election, in which Trump is almost certain to be the Republican candidate to challenge Biden’s reelection bid. Only 6% of voters believed things in the US are going “very well,” the CBS poll found, compared with 36% who said the nation is trending “very badly.”

Biden was rated poorly on issues regarded as priority concerns for voters, including the economy, crime, and border security. The poll showed that 44% of voters believed that inflation would ease under Trump’s policies, compared with 17% under Biden’s approach. Similarly, 72% of respondents said illegal immigration would be reduced under Trump, versus 22% under Biden’s policies.

The 81-year-old Biden, the oldest president in US history, also faces voter concerns about his health and mental fitness for the job. The survey found that 68% of Americans believed Biden is cognitively unfit to serve as president, while 74% said he isn’t healthy enough physically. Trump got failing marks from 51% of voters on mental fitness and 46% on physical health.

CBS reported that Trump is now leading Biden by four percentage points, at 52-48, in the presidential race, his biggest margin to date. The poll showed that 63% of voters believed Trump has a vision for the country, compared with Biden’s 50%, and 48% agreed that the ex-president “fights for people like you,” versus 42% for the Democrat incumbent.

Amid low poll ratings of his performance as president, Biden has focused his reelection campaign largely on portraying Trump as a “despicable” danger to democracy. “Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time,” the president said in January. “It is what the 2024 election is all about.”

However, the CBS poll showed that Biden and Trump are viewed about equally in terms of the perceived danger they pose to the US system of government. While 34% of voters believe “democracy and the rule of law will be safe” only if Biden wins, 33% say only a Trump victory can preserve the system.

Voters in both major political parties largely agreed that they’re not happy to see a rematch of the 2020 presidential race. When voters were asked how they felt about another Biden-Trump battle, the top responses were “negative” (48%) and “depressed” (42%). Just 20% saw the matchup as “positive,” while 9% say it’s “inspiring.”