This week, the Justice Department took classified documents from President Joe Biden's home in Delaware — adding to the classified materials that were found at his former office at the Penn Biden Center in November. Amid the discovery of more classified documents in Biden's possession, Americans' perception of President Biden as "honest and trustworthy" has fallen in the latest Economist/YouGov Poll.
This week, just 34% of Americans describe Biden as honest and trustworthy — a new low for his presidency. That's an 8-point drop from when this question was last asked in December 2022, prior to the public revelation that classified documents had been found in Biden's possession. The 46% of Americans this week who say he is not honest and trustworthy is up from 39% in December, while 20% are unsure.
The share of Democrats who see Biden as honest and trustworthy has fallen 10 points, from 79% in December to 69% this week. Among Independents, that perception fell 7 points (from 30% to 23%), and it fell 6 points among Republicans (from 14% to 8%).
Biden's approval rating has also dropped to 41%, with 51% disapproving (a 10-point gap). Last week, the gap between the share who approve (44%) and disapprove (48%) was only four points. The president fares better in his handling of the issues of foreign policy (41% approve), national security (40% approve), and the Russia-Ukraine conflict (40% approve) than he does on issues like crime (33% approve) or inflation and prices (32% approve).
A majority of Americans (58%) now say they do not want Biden to run for president again in 2024, up from last week (51%). He's also experiencing a drop in support from his own party members. This week, 38% of Democrats think Biden should run for re-election, compared to 46% last week. One-third (33%) do not want him to run again (up from 27%).
— Taylor Orth contributed to this article
See the toplines and crosstabs from the Economist/YouGov poll conducted on January 21 - 24, 2023 among 1,500 U.S. adult citizens.
Methodology: Respondents were selected from YouGov’s opt-in panel using sample matching. A random sample (stratified by gender, age, race, education, geographic region, and voter registration) was selected from the 2019 American Community Survey. The sample was weighted according to gender, age, race, education, 2020 election turnout and presidential vote, baseline party identification, and current voter registration status. Demographic weighting targets come from the 2019 American Community Survey. Baseline party identification is the respondent’s most recent answer given prior to June 1, 2022, and is weighted to the estimated distribution at that time (34% Democratic, 31% Republican). The margin of error for the overall sample is approximately 3%.
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