Poll: Biden gets modest 'honeymoon' ahead of inauguration

When Joe Biden enters the White House on Wednesday, he’ll be taking office with something President Donald Trump never got: a honeymoon.

Polls — including a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll — show more Americans have a favorable opinion of Biden than during the campaign, a sign that he is riding a wave of increased support ahead of his inauguration as president. Since winning the election, Biden’s favorable rating in POLITICO/Morning Consult polls has ranged between 54 percent and 57 percent, his standing in the latest poll released on the eve of his swearing-in.

Biden’s bounce is still smaller than most other recent presidents, including Barack Obama, whose initial approval ratings were above 60 percent. But he is still easily outpacing Trump, whose poll numbers increased only slightly after winning the 2016 election and tumbled soon after taking office as a result of his combative style and unpopular policies.

Views of Biden, while positive overall, break sharply along partisan lines. Roughly nine in 10 Democratic voters, 91 percent, have a favorable opinion of the president-elect, but only 16 percent of Republicans view him favorably. Among independents, 52 percent view Biden favorably, while 41 percent have an unfavorable opinion.

A new president’s approval rating isn’t a trivial matter. It can reflect the political capital the White House has to enact its agenda early in a new term, and Biden is entering with a list of ambitious goals, especially in dealing with the coronavirus and the economic toll it has exacted over the past year.

The latest Biden figures reflect his favorability: 57 percent have a favorable opinion of him in the new poll, while 39 percent view him unfavorably. Asked about how he's handling the presidential transition, voters give Biden even higher marks: 63 percent approve, while only 26 percent disapprove.

But Trump’s favorable rating — 39 percent favorable, 59 percent unfavorable — mirrors his final approval rating almost perfectly: 39 percent of voters surveyed approve of the way Trump is handling his job as president, and 58 percent disapprove. (A separate POLITICO/Morning Consult poll that has been tracking confidence in U.S. elections over the past few months, released on Tuesday, showed Trump’s approval rating reaching a new low of 36 percent.)

The new president’s to-do list is long, and the POLITICO/Morning Consult poll asked survey respondents how urgent a priority each of 25 different possible initiatives should be for the Biden White House. Ranking highest were “controlling the spread of the coronavirus” (70 percent say it should be “a top priority”), “stimulating the economy to recover from the coronavirus pandemic” (65 percent) and “installing an effective distribution plan for a Covid-19 vaccine” (64 percent).

Forced to choose one, 42 percent say “economic issues” should be Biden’s top priority, more than twice the percentage of those who choose “health care issues” (19 percent) or “security issues.”

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted Jan. 15-17, surveying 1,993 registered voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 2 percentage points.

Morning Consult is a global data intelligence company, delivering insights on what people think in real time by surveying tens of thousands across the globe every single day.

More details on the poll and its methodology can be found in these two documents: Toplines | Crosstabs