February 2, 2023
In recent months, classified documents were found at President Biden’s Delaware home and the office he used after he was Vice President at the Penn Biden Center, a Washington think tank. More Americans disapprove than approve of the way Biden handled the situation involving these classified documents, but his overall approval rating is holding steady.
People are not attending very closely to the news about the discovery of these classified documents. Twenty-eight percent of adults heard or read a lot about it. Another 35% know something about it and 37% heard little or nothing about it. Seventy-one percent of Republicans are paying at least some attention, compared with 63% of Democrats. Half of those who know a lot about finding these documents disapprove of how Biden is handling it.
Overall, 39% disapprove while only 23% approve of the president’s handling of the situation since the classified documents were found, though 36% don’t have an opinion either way. Democrats are more likely to approve than disapprove, while most Republicans disapprove.
Forty-one percent of the public approve of how Biden is handling his job as president, not significantly different from the 43% who said that in December.
But the assessments of the president’s job performance are strongly partisan. Large majorities of Democrats have a positive view, while Republicans hold consistently negative impressions of how Biden is doing his job. In the new poll, 77% of Democrats approve, while 91% of Republicans disapprove, both unchanged since late last year.
The nationwide poll was conducted January 26-30, 2023 using the AmeriSpeak® Panel, the probability-based panel of NORC at the University of Chicago. Online and telephone interviews using landlines and cell phones were conducted with 1,068 adults. The margin of sampling error is +/- 4.2 percentage points.
Suggested Citation: AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. (February 2023). “Biden’s approval rating holds steady after discovery of classified documents” https://apnorc.org/projects/bidens-approval-rating-holds-steady-after-discovery-of-classified-documents/
