CNN Poll: Biden's discharge 0:48
(CNN) -
At the cusp of Joe Biden's 100-day presidency mark, a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS found that 53% of Americans approve of the way he's handling work and say he has had the right priorities.
And 59% say yes, he's doing a good job delivering on his campaign promises.
Biden garnered broad approval for his handling of the defining theme of the last year of American life: the coronavirus pandemic. Overall, 66% approve of its handling, 6 points more since the beginning of March. He garnered near-universal approval on the issue among Democrats (97% approve), 65% approval among independents, and 30% approval by Republicans, 16 points higher than the GOP's approval of Biden on any other issue tested in the survey.
Biden had positive net approval ratings on seven of the nine topics tested in the survey.
After the coronavirus, the president earned his highest marks for his handling of environmental policy and racial injustice (54% approve of each).
Additionally, 52% approve of his handling of the role as commander-in-chief, and about half approve of his handling of the economy (51%), taxes (50%), and foreign affairs (48%).
The survey suggests that Americans are beginning to see signs of life in an economy that has been stagnant for much of the past year.
The majority, 54%, say that economic conditions are very or somewhat good, compared to 43% who felt that way in January.
And nearly 6 in 10 say they expect the economy to be in good shape within a year (58%).
ANALYSIS |
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Kamala harris
Vice President Kamala Harris also had a 53% approval rating on the poll.
Their disapproval number is lower than Biden's (37% disapprove of Harris, 43% of Biden), and a higher proportion say they aren't sure how they feel about their job.
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There is a stark gender gap in Harris's view: The first female vice president garnered 58% support among women who approve of her handling of the job compared to 48% for men.
That's nearly identical to the gender divide in Biden's numbers, but Harris's ratings show gender gaps between Democrats and independents that aren't there for Biden.
Among Democratic women, 94% approve of the way Harris is handling his work and 88% of Democratic men agree.
And the majority of independent women approve (52%), while only 46% of independent men do.
For Biden, there are only 2-point gender gaps between Democrats and independents.
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How does the Biden poll compare to its predecessors?
Biden's overall numbers are on the lower end for presidents elected to his first term at the 100-day mark, and they're even more divided by party than any of his recent predecessors.
Biden's 53% approval rating is similar to Bill Clinton's 55% in 1993. And only one newly elected president since 1952 had a worse overall approval rating: Donald Trump, who garnered 44% approval, in April. 2017. But there are signs in the poll that, despite partisan divisions, some impressions of Biden and his presidency are more positive than those of his recent predecessors.
The 53% who feel that Biden has had the right priorities is higher than the percentage who said the same about Trump, George W. Bush or Clinton early in their presidencies. It is slightly below the 63% who said the same of Barack Obama. Similarly, the 59% who say that Biden is doing a good job keeping his promises surpasses the 100-day mark of the Trump (48%) or Clinton (33%) presidency. Plus, 68% felt that Obama was doing a good job keeping his promises.
And most see positive traits in Biden. Most say they care about people like you (57%) and can run government effectively (56%), two traits that were central to Biden's campaign messages. Slightly fewer say that Biden will unite the country and not divide it (53% feel that way) or that he can bring the kind of change the country needs (51%). 54% view Biden as honest and trustworthy, far ahead of Trump's 37% at this stage, but far behind Obama, Bush or Clinton in their respective early years. And 52% say Biden inspires confidence.
But the division by parties is extreme. There is an 86-point gap between Democrats and Republicans in their overall approval, compared to a 77-point gap for Trump at his 100-day mark, 62-point gaps for Obama and Bush, and a 57-point gap for Clinton.
The pattern applies to almost every question about the president: While 41% of Republicans in 2009 said Obama was doing a good job fulfilling his campaign promises, only 20% of Republicans say that about Biden now, despite their results among the Democrats they are identical. And while Clinton's overall empathy number at the 100-day point of his time in office exceeds Biden's by 7 points, Democrats are actually now more likely to say that Biden cares about people like them as opposed to Clinton at the time (93% for Biden, 87% for Clinton) and Republicans are much less likely to describe Biden that way (11% of Republicans feel that Biden cares about people like them, and 44 % of Republicans said Clinton did).
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Biden's critical points in the survey
Biden's weak points in the poll are immigration (41% approve) and gun policy (40% approve), two issues where his approval rating among his own supporters drops significantly (75% of those Democrats approve of gun policy, 72% immigration).
Nearly 8 in 10 Americans say the current situation on the US-Mexico border is a crisis (78%), and 65% say they disapprove of the way the US government is treating migrants who try cross that border. Those numbers are similar to the results of a June 2019 poll, but the partisan dynamics behind those views have changed.
Republicans are still more likely than Democrats to view the situation at the border as a crisis, but now, with a Democratic president, 91% say it is a crisis, compared to 82% in 2019, when Trump was at the helm. command. Among Democrats, the proportion who called it a crisis is roughly the same as it was then (70% in 2019; 69% now). And disapproval of the way the government treats those migrants has changed dramatically. In 2019, 28% of Republicans disapproved of the government's handling of those trying to cross the southern border, now 67% disapprove. Among Democrats, disapproval has dropped from 93% in 2019 to 59% now.
The majority of Americans, 64%, say they are in favor of allowing refugees from Central American countries to seek asylum in the United States, similar to the proportion that felt that way in 2019. There has been little change in the partisan divide on this. Question: 82% of Democrats and 68% of Independents are in favor of allowing them to apply for asylum, but only 32% of Republicans agree.
The methodology and weighting of this survey has been modified compared to CNN surveys conducted prior to 2021. Interviews conducted with mobile phones accounted for 75% of the total, up from 65% in previous surveys. The tagging was extended for six days instead of four days, allowing more efforts to be made to contact those who are not easily accessible. Demographic weighting was adjusted to account for categories of education more disaggregated by race, and geographic weighting was applied to ensure a representative distribution by population density. In addition, the results were weighted for party identification and those who identify as independent,with targets calculated using an average of the current poll plus four recent CNN polls.
The new CNN poll was conducted by SSRS April 21-26 among a random national sample of 1,004 adults, contacted by landlines or cell phones by a live interviewer. The full sample results have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.