Most voters say Trump doing worse than Biden as president: Poll
by Max Rego - 02/03/26 4:14 PM ET
A January survey from Harvard University and The Harris Poll found that a slight majority of respondents believe that former President Biden was more effective than President Trump.
The poll, released Monday, found that 51 percent of respondents said Trump is doing a worse job than Biden, while 49 percent said the president is doing a better job than his predecessor. The same survey conducted in December found that 53 percent of respondents said Trump is faring better than Biden did.
The latest results also mark a stark reversal from February 2025, when 58 percent of respondents to the Harvard-Harris poll said that Trump was faring better than Biden.
Both leaders are underwater with respondents, with Trump viewed unfavorably by 8 percent more respondents than those who viewed him favorably and Biden viewed unfavorably by 10 percent more respondents than those who viewed him favorably.
Trump and his administration have faced scrutiny from Democratic lawmakers and the American public in the wake of the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal immigration officers in Minneapolis last month.
The latter of the two incidents, the Jan. 24 shooting of Alex Pretti by Customs and Border Protection agents, prompted the president to send White House border czar Tom Homan to Minnesota to take over the federal immigration enforcement operation there.
Homan, according to the Harvard-Harris poll, is one of two political figures — along with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — viewed favorably by a greater percentage than those who view him unfavorably. Exactly a quarter of respondents said they viewed the longtime immigration official favorably, while 23 percent said they viewed Homan unfavorably.
On the economy, the president is also facing growing concerns from Americans ahead of the midterms. While exactly half of respondents to December’s Harvard-Harris poll said the economy was better than it was under Biden, 47 percent said so in January’s survey.
Nearly 6 in 10 independent respondents also said that the economy is worse under Trump than it was under Biden.
In December, annual inflation hit 2.7 percent, with food prices up 3.1 percent and energy costs up 2.3 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Last February, prices were up 2.8 percent relative to 12 months prior, while food prices were up 2.6 percent and energy costs down 0.2 percent.
The Harvard-Harris poll was conducted online with 2,000 registered voters from Jan. 28-29. It has a margin of error of 1.99 percentage points.
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5721162-biden-trump-effectiveness-survey/
