President Biden is starting his term in the White House with the approval of almost half of the Americans, according to a new Marist poll released on Monday.
Forty-nine percent of respondents said they approve of Biden’s performance in the job in the days since he took the oath, the survey found. Meanwhile, 35% said they disapprove of the new president and 16% are unsure.
The poll shows Biden starting his first term as president in a stronger position than the previous one President Trump
Donald TrumpBiden reverses Trump’s last-minute attempt to freeze 0.4 billion programs Trump announces new legal impeachment team after reported matches Republicans struggle to unify toward the next election cycle MORE. The first Marist poll of the Trump presidency, released in February 2017, showed the now former president with only 39% approval.
Still, there is still a big party divide in perceptions about Biden’s performance in office. Ninety-one percent of Democrats gave the new president positive comments, while 78 percent of Republicans said they disapproved of the work he is doing at the White House.
Meanwhile, a plurality of independents – 46 percent – said they approve of Biden’s job performance so far, while 32 percent said they disapproved and 22 percent said they were unsure, according to the Marist survey.
Most Americans – 55 percent – believe Biden is doing more to unite the country than to divide it. This includes 91% of Democrats, 54% of independents and 17% of Republicans. About a third of respondents – 35 percent – said they believed Biden was making divisions in the U.S. worse.
Biden is also seen by 47 percent of Americans as working to change the country for the better. On the other hand, 32% said that it is taking the US in a worse direction, the survey revealed.
Still, this suggests that Americans generally have a more positive impression of Biden than of Trump after he took office.
In February 2017, 38 percent of Americans said that Trump was taking the country in a more positive direction. Another 43 percent at the time said he was pushing the US in the wrong direction.
“In his first few weeks in office, President Biden achieved a higher approval rating than former President Trump at any point in his four years,” said Lee Miringoff, director of Marist Research. “Still, Biden still hopes to convince Americans who are on the fence, especially the independents, and end the huge party division. This is a more daunting challenge. “
The Marist survey is based on the responses of 1,313 American adults, gathered from 24 to 27 January. The sample margin of error is 3.3 percentage points.