One important way in which Joe Biden and Donald Trump are exactly the same
Byron York
ONE IMPORTANT WAY IN WHICH JOE BIDEN AND DONALD TRUMP ARE EXACTLY THE SAME. There’s a new Fox News poll about the state of presidential politics. Among other things, it shows the remarkable stability of President Joe Biden’s job approval rating — 44%, the fifth month in a row in which the president’s rating has been either 44% or 45%. And since January of 2022, Biden’s number has never gone below 40% or above 47%. The minority of voters who approve of his job performance is very stable, as is the majority, 55% in the new poll, who disapprove.
Perhaps Biden will do something that will cause those numbers to change significantly up or down, but at the moment, it appears he has settled into a polling rut that reflects a pretty solid division in American politics — one that might not change before the next presidential election.
But those are not the key numbers in the new poll. The key numbers are the percentages of people who have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Biden and of former President Donald Trump. The striking thing about those numbers is that the public’s opinions of the current president and his predecessor are almost precisely the same.
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Here is the question Fox asked, a standard of such surveys: “I’m going to read you the names of several individuals. Please tell me whether you have a generally favorable or unfavorable opinion of each one. If you’ve never heard of one, please just say so.” After that, if the respondent said favorable or unfavorable, the questioner asked: “Is that strongly favorable or unfavorable, or only somewhat?”
For Biden, the results were 44% favorable and 56% unfavorable. For Trump, they were 43% favorable and 56% unfavorable. For all intents and purposes, they are exactly the same. Vastly different men, vastly different circumstances in the political world, and their ratings are exactly the same.
The difference between the two presidents is that people feel a bit more intensely about Trump than they do about Biden. For Biden, 19% said they have a strongly favorable opinion, while 24% said they have only a somewhat favorable opinion. For Trump, 25% said they have a strongly favorable opinion, while 18% have a somewhat favorable opinion.
The story was the same on the negative side. For Biden, 40% said they have a strongly unfavorable opinion, while 15% said they have a somewhat unfavorable opinion. For Trump, 45% have a strongly unfavorable opinion, while 11% have a somewhat unfavorable opinion.
Of course, the results reflect this moment only, not some time, such as Election Day, in the future. But Biden has consolidated support inside the Democratic Party and has just announced his candidacy for reelection. He is, at least by his party’s reckoning, doing well. Trump has recently been indicted and is now on trial in a lawsuit that alleges he raped a woman nearly three decades ago. And even beyond those matters, Trump has been the subject of intensely negative media coverage in recent months and for years. And yet, there is public opinion of the two — almost exactly equal.
There are more people who love Trump than love Biden. And there are more people who hate Trump than hate Biden. But not a lot more: 19% with a strongly favorable opinion of Biden, while 25% feel the same way about Trump; 40% with a strongly unfavorable opinion of Biden, while 45% feel that way about Trump.
There’s no guarantee that either man will be the nominee of his party. Things could happen in the next year to change the situation. But if the 2024 presidential race is a Biden-Trump rematch, despite all that has happened, it is striking how evenly matched it might be. The extremes of both sides are set and dug in, and the “somewhats,” the people who don’t feel all that strongly one way or the other, might be the decisive factor.
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