Both the Biden and Trump presidencies are viewed as mostly doing more harm than good across a range of issues

April 12, 2024

The public generally says the presidencies of both Joe Biden and Donald Trump did more harm than good, but each president is viewed negatively on different issues.

Just over half of the public think Biden’s presidency hurt the country on issues related to cost of living and immigration. About half think Biden’s presidency has done more to harm relations with other countries.

Nearly half say the four years of the Trump administration hurt the country’s voting rights and election security, relations with other countries, abortion laws, and climate change. The public is more likely to say Trump helped rather than hurt the country when it comes to job creation and immigration and border security issues. The public is evenly split in assessing his impact on the cost of living.

Democrats are more negative about aspects of Biden’s performance than Republicans are about Trump. For example, 34% of Democrats say Biden’s presidency hurt the cost of living or neither helped nor hurt it (35%). Thirty-one percent of Democrats think Biden hurt immigration and border security, while 42% say his administration neither helped nor hurt.

In comparison, few Republicans say Trump’s presidency hurt any of the issues asked about. Democrats are more united in their view of how Trump’s presidency hurt the country than they are about Biden’s impacts.

Few adults see a personal benefit from either Trump or Biden’s presidencies. About a third of adults say Trump did more to help people like them while he was president. A quarter of the public think Biden has done more. Three in 10 say they did not benefit from either presidential administration.

Again, Trump receives higher marks from his party than Biden does. Republicans are more likely to say Trump did more to benefit people like them (77%) than Democrats are to say that Biden benefits people like them (52%).

Forty-one percent of men say Biden’s presidency helped women. Only 32% of women agree and 37% say neither administration helped women. Men and women are more likely to say the Trump administration helped men than Biden’s presidency.

Black people are likelier to say that Biden’s presidency helped them (45%) than Trump’s (10%), although 38% say that neither did more to help Black people. Thirty-five percent of Hispanic adults think the Biden administration did more to help Hispanic people, while 28% say Trump’s presidency did more, and 27% say that neither did more to help Hispanic people. Regardless of race or ethnicity, Trump is seen as more beneficial for white people than Biden.

The nationwide poll was conducted April 4-8, 2024 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 1,204 adults. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3.9 percentage points.