Biden will take office with a reserve of goodwill in his corner: two-thirds of Americans approve (66%) of the way Biden is handling the presidential transition, and his favorability rating has risen 7 points compared to a pre-election poll in October (59% see it favorably now, compared to 52% then).
The public is less positive about how the rest of the elected Washington is handling the transition. Most disapprove of President Donald Trump’s combative treatment since the election (70% disapprove), and his Republican colleagues in Congress receive similar negative reviews (66% disapprove). About half (51%) approve of how Democrats in Congress handled it.
Once Biden takes office and the results of the Georgia Senate’s second rounds are certified, Democrats will control the presidency, the House and the Senate. Most Americans say that single-party control will be good for the country (53%), more than those who said the same about Republican control of the presidency and Congress after the 2016 elections (49%), but less than those who felt that way about democratic control after 2008 (59%).
Most say Biden is likely to achieve several important goals, including signing another coronavirus stimulus bill (83% say it’s very or somewhat likely), restoring relations with U.S. allies (74%), ensuring than 100 million doses of Coronavirus vaccines are administered within 100 days of your presidency (70%) and establish a government health insurance option that anyone could buy (64%).
But there is skepticism that he will be able to soften political divisions in the country (53% say this is unlikely). And the Republicans that Biden would need to appeal to succeed are the ones most likely to say it won’t work (88% unlikely).
Research shows that Biden’s own views start out strongly polarized, with a party gap in expectations for his presidency that Trump faced early in his 2017 term, and drastically greater than the party split in expectations for Barack Obama before he took possession.
Overall, 61% of adults expect Biden to do a very good or reasonably good job as president, more than he said about Trump in 2017 (48%), but well below the share that expected good things from Obama before he took office. position (79%).
Almost all Democrats expect Biden to perform well as president, 96%, the same as he said about Obama. But among Republicans, the portion that expects Biden to do a good job as president is 40 points less than the portion that said the same thing about Obama (57% of Republicans said Obama would do a good job, while 17% say Biden will do).
This 79-point gap between Democrats and Republicans in Biden is identical to the gap between Republicans and Democrats in January 2017 over whether Trump would do a good job as president (93% of Republicans said he would do a good job against 14% of Democrats) .
Favorability rates for the new vice president, Kamala Harris, are higher than at any time in CNN’s poll on her. Overall, 51% have a favorable opinion, 39% unfavorable. Opinions about Harris are also divided by party, with 90% of Democrats claiming a favorable opinion of her against 9% of Republicans.
Jill Biden’s favorability rating is largely positive and almost as high as her husband’s (58% have a favorable opinion of the future first lady), with 28% expressing a negative opinion about her.
As happened during last year’s presidential campaign, Democrats and Republicans are living in completely different worlds when asked what the biggest problems in the country are today.
Overall, 46% say the coronavirus outbreak is the biggest problem, with 21% choosing political divisions, 15% the economy, 10% racial injustice and 7% national security. Among Democrats, 65% say the coronavirus is the most important problem, with racial injustice in second place with 16%. Among Republicans, however, 32% choose political divisions, 30% the economy, 25% coronavirus and less than 1% say it is racial injustice.
Most parties, however, say that things in America today are going badly: 77% say so overall, including 91% of Democrats, 77% of independents and 61% of Republicans. This is the biggest part saying that things have been going badly on CNN polls since April 2009.
Republicans’ opinions about the state of the country have worsened significantly since October (from 77% saying things were going well for 37% now). This is typical of a party that loses the presidency, but it is a steeper drop than among Democrats after the 2016 election defeat (from 85% saying things were going well before the election to 61% before the inauguration of Trump).
And the perception of the economy is worse than at the beginning of Trump’s term: 43% say he is in good shape today, compared to 57% in January 2017.
About 6 out of 10 overall (61%) say they think the country will be better in four years than it is today, more than it said in January 2017 (47%). But this is also divided by parties. Among Democrats, 95% say the country will be better in four years, while 73% of Republicans say it will be worse.
Methodology
The research methodology and weight have been modified compared to previous CNN research. The interviews conducted on cell phones represented 75% of the total, compared to 65% in previous surveys. Dialing extended over six days instead of four days, allowing more efforts to be made to contact those who are not easily accessible. The demographic weighting was adjusted to take into account the most discrete education categories divided by race, and a geographical weighting was applied to ensure the representative distribution by population density. In addition, the results were weighted for party identification and lean among independents, with targets computed using an average of the current poll plus three recent CNN polls.
CNN’s new survey was conducted by the SSRS from January 9th to 14th among a random national sample of 1,003 adults reached on landlines or cell phones by a live interviewer. The results of the complete sample have a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.