Voters 2024 views of the Trump and Biden Presidencies

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Voters are delivering a poor assessment of President Joe Biden’s job performance as he and former President Donald Trump prepare for a 2024 rematch. They are also looking back more fondly than before on Trump’s tenure in office.

Just 14% of registered voters say Biden has done a better job as president than they expected he would, according to the latest NBC News national poll. Another 42% say Biden has done a worse job than they expected, and 44% say his tenure has gone about as they expected it would.

But 40% say Trump’s presidency was better than expected, with 29% saying it was worse and 31% saying it was about as expected.

The marks for Trump are slightly better than they were when NBC News asked the same question about his administration in August 2018. Then, 29% of registered voters said the Trump administration was going better than expected, 27% said it was going worse, and 43% said it was going about as expected.

Biden’s lower marks come in part from disappointment from inside his own party. While 52% of Democrats say his administration has met expectations, 30% say it has been better than they expected, and 18% said it has been worse. Trump inspires more enthusiastic Republican loyalty, with 80% of his party saying his administration was better than expected and just 6% saying it was worse. Another 24% of Republicans say Trump’s tenure was about as expected.

Critically, Trump also fares far better than Biden with independent voters — 38% of them say Trump’s administration went better than expected, 43% say it went as expected, and 18% say it was worse. Just 6% of independents believe Biden’s administration is going better than they expected, with 52% saying it has gone worse.

When respondents were asked to expand on their feelings about both candidates in short, open-ended responses, many of the answers hinged on the economy and the border.

“On every front: immigration, the wars, economy, pretty much you name it. He needs to close the border. He’s being pushed around too much. He needs to take charge like a superpower like we are,” a male Illinois Republican in his early 40s said of Biden. “He was passing out too much money, and it caused inflation to skyrocket, so prices are way too high.”

Others with low views of Biden’s presidency cited his age, their concerns about his competency or frustration that the country still seems divided.

“The economy is stagnant as I’m concerned. I don’t see it getting better or worse, but I do not see anything that will improve it,” said a New York independent woman who voted for Biden in 2020.

“In 2020, he ran on bringing us together, and instead he made us further away. I’d like to have seen someone bring the country together," she said.

Voters in Biden’s base are more sympathetic, but many are frustrated by what they perceive as a lack of action on his part.

Other 2020 Biden voters also criticized his handling of the war between Israel and Hamas.

Among the 14% who said Biden has done better than expected, many celebrated an improving economy, his handling of the Covid pandemic, his pushback against Trump and his policies on issues like infrastructure and the environment.

Kenichi Nishikawa, a California Democrat in his mid-50s who voted for Biden, said he sees an economy that is turning around, which is the No. 1 reason he believes Biden is doing a good job.

“I think the economy is doing a lot better than anybody would have expected. I think he’s faced the turmoil from the Republican Party better than I expected. I think that he’s pushed through some really good programs, like the CHIPS initiative and the infrastructure [law],” he said.

The vast majority of Republicans have fond memories of Trump’s time in office and see a mirror image of the current administration.

“I think the economy was growing and the country was secure. Well, we had the border, and we had no wars, we had no wars with the other foreign countries,” said an Illinois Republican in his mid-50s.

Independents and even Democrats pointed to similar things, largely the economy and immigration, in explaining why they thought Trump’s administration did better than expected.

Those who thought Trump’s administration was worse than expected largely cited his response to the pandemic, his personal behavior and his actions in regard to rejecting the 2020 election results and to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.