As Joe Biden approaches the 100-day mark of his presidency, the American public continues to give him a relatively strong approval rating and expressed positive views on how his administration has handled the production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, according to a new survey conducted by PEW.
On the contrary, the Trump administration received far lower ratings for how it handled vaccine production and distribution, with only 43% who said they did an excellent or good job.
Currently, 59% approve of the way Biden is handling his job as president, while 39% disapprove, the poll found.
Biden’s job approval rating has increased modestly from 54% in March and is comparable to several of his predecessors – including Barack Obama and George H. W. Bush but is however much higher than Donald Trump’s in April 2017.
Views of Biden and his administration highlight several stark contrasts with opinions of his predecessor.
According to the survey, while 46% of Americans said they like the way Biden conducts himself as president, 27% said that they don’t, while another 27% have mixed feelings about his conduct.
Additionally, 44% said he has changed the tone of political debate for the better, while 29% said he made it worse.
A huge gap exists in comparison with his predecessor Trump, the poll showed.
Indeed, last year, just 15% said they liked the way Trump conducted himself as president. In both 2020 and 2019, 55% said Trump had changed political debate in the US for the worse.
However, the share of the public saying they agree with Biden on important issues is little different from the share saying that about Trump last year.
Fewer than half of Americans (44%) said they agree with Biden on all or nearly all (13%) or on many (31%) of the important issues facing the country; 25% said they agree with Biden on a few issues, while 29% said they agree with him on almost no issues. Last year, 42% of Americans said they agreed with Trump on nearly all (19%) or many issues (23%).
The new national survey by Pew Research Center, conducted on the Center’s nationally representative American Trends Panel from April 5-11, 2021 among 5,109 adults, finds that the administration gets high marks for handling the manufacture and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines.
While an overwhelming share of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents (88%) said the administration has done an excellent or good job in managing the vaccine rollout, so too does a much smaller majority (55%) of Republicans and Republican leaners.
However, a 55% majority of the public – including 86% of Republicans and nearly a third of Democrats – express positive views of the Trump administration’s support for the development of COVID-19 vaccines by several pharmaceutical companies.