Despite a significant decline during his White House tenure, President Joe Biden’s approval rating remains marginally higher than that of former President Donald Trump at the same point in his presidency.
Analysts and commentators have paid close attention to Biden’s rapidly falling poll numbers, which have dropped by double digits since he took office last January. While the president’s approval rating remains low, it is still slightly higher than Trump’s approval rating during the same time as commander-in-chief, according to News Week.
According to a poll collected by FiveThirtyEight, as of April 15, Biden’s approval rating was 41.6 percent, while his disapproval rating was 52.2 percent. While those figures are unenviable for any politician, they were slightly higher than where Trump stood in the polls on April 15, 2018.
According to FiveThirtyEight’s polling, the former president had an average approval rating of 40.6 percent exactly four years ago on Friday. That was only 1% worse than Biden’s current average. Trump’s disapproval among voters was also slightly higher, at 53.8 percent—1.6 percentage points higher than the current president.
According to FiveThirtyEight’s averages, Biden entered office last year with an average favorability of 53%, with only 36% disapproving of the new president. In comparison, Trump started his presidency in January 2017 with only 45.5 percent of Americans supporting him and 41.3 percent opposing him.
Meanwhile, Trump’s current favorability rating is higher than Biden’s. According to FiveThirtyEight, the average shows as of April 13, approximately 43.7 percent of Americans viewed the former president favorably. Meanwhile, 52.3 percent of the public has an unfavorable opinion of Trump.
Polls also show that if the next presidential election were held now, Trump would be well-positioned to face Biden again. According to the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls, approximately 45.4 percent of voters support Trump in 2024, while only 41.7 percent support Biden—a 3.7 percent advantage for the former president.
Although Biden has stated repeatedly that he intends to run for reelection in 2024, Trump has not stated whether he will do so. However, the former president has consistently hinted at the possibility, routinely responding to questions about his future political plans by saying his supporters will be “very happy” with his decision.
In an interview with The Washington Post earlier this month, Trump stated that if he announces another White House bid, other potential Republican candidates will step aside.
“If I ran, I can’t imagine they’d want to run. Some out of loyalty would have had a hard time running. I think that most of those people…[are] there because of me. In some cases, because I backed them and endorsed them,” he said.
In terms of Biden, he has stated that Trump’s bid for another presidential term would only embolden him to run for reelection in 2024.
“Why would I not run against Donald Trump if he were the nominee? That would increase the prospect of running,” the president told ABC News in December.
