President Biden's half-century in politics came to an end on Monday as President-elect Trump took office and succeeded Biden in the White House.
While the longtime Democratic senator from Delaware, two-term vice president and one-term president can point to numerous legislative victories and other accomplishments during his four years in the White House, Biden leaves office as One of America's most unpopular presidents. the history of the nation.
Biden, who successfully defeated Trump in the 2020 election, promised to turn a page on his predecessor, but is facing a legacy tarnished by his inability to prevent Trump from returning to the presidency.
In an open letter to the American people on Wednesday, Biden appeared to acknowledge that he was unable to deliver on his overall 2020 campaign promises.
What the latest Fox News poll says about President Biden
President Joe Biden speaks about foreign policy during a speech at the State Department on Monday, January 13, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh) (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
"I'm running for president because I believe the very soul of America is at stake. Our very essence is at stake," Biden wrote.
But he lamented that "that's still the case."
Senior political scientist Wayne Lesperance said: "President Biden ran and was elected on a platform of returning to normalcy in 2020. While voters seemed to want that in principle, history will remember that Biden did not To be able to deliver on his promise," the president of New England College told Fox News.
New survey shows Biden's approval ratings still at trough as he leaves office
In his farewell address to the nation last week, Biden aimed to solidify his legacy as a president who pushed for political stability at home while strengthening U.S. leadership abroad and as a man who led the nation. Leaders emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic have made historic investments in infrastructure and clean energy, boosted the economy, made historic gains in job creation and lowered prescription drug prices for millions of Americans. .
President Joe Biden delivers his farewell address in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, January 15, 2025, in Washington. (Mandel Ngan/AP Pool) (Mandel Ngan/AP Pool)
But he also used his speech to "warn the country" that "the United States is forming an oligarchy of extreme wealth, power and influence that actually threatens our entire democracy. Our basic rights, freedoms and fairness for everyone to succeed." Chance" ".
Biden ended his single term in the White House with approval ratings that remain low.
The latest national poll conducted by Fox News from January 10 to 13 and released on Thursday showed his approval rating at 42% and his disapproval rating at 57%.
According to the latest CNN poll, only 36% of Americans approve of the job Biden is doing in the White House, matching the president's previous low in cable news network polls during Biden's tenure in the White House.
Will history be kind or unkind to President Biden?
In the USA TODAY/Suffolk University and Marist College national poll, Biden's approval rating is slightly higher at 43%, but still in negative territory. All polls were conducted in early and mid-January.
In Biden's first six months in the White House, his approval ratings have hovered in the mid-50s. However, the president's approval ratings began to slide in August 2021 amid criticism of Biden's handling of the unrest US withdraws troops from Afghanistan COVID-19 cases surged that summer, mostly among unvaccinated people.
The president's plummeting approval rating has also been driven by soaring inflation - which began in the summer of 2021 and remains a major economic worry for Americans - and a surge in migrants trying to enter the United States along the U.S. border. Southern border.
Biden's approval ratings plummeted underwater in the fall of 2021 and never returned to positive territory.
The latest polls also show that many Americans believe Biden's presidency has been a failure.
On January 15, 2025, US President Joe Biden delivered a farewell address to the nation in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC. (Photo by Mandel NGAN/POOL/AFP) (Photo by MANDEL NGAN/POOL/AFP) Getty Images) ((Mandel Ngan/AP Pool)
A CNN survey showed that 61% of adults nationwide said they believe Biden's presidency has been a failure overall, while 38% believe it has been a success.
According to the USA Today/Suffolk University survey, 44% of registered voters said history will evaluate Biden as a failed president, while 27% said he will be evaluated as a fair president. Twenty-one percent of respondents said history will view Biden as a good president, while only 5% said he will be viewed as a great president.
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In the Marist Poll, just over a third of adults surveyed nationwide said Biden would be viewed as one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, and 19% said he would be viewed as a below average president.
Twenty-eight percent of participants said Biden's legacy would be viewed as average, and 19% said he would be viewed as above average or one of the best presidents in U.S. history.
In one of his final interviews during his term, Biden admitted regret to MSNBC, "The irony is that I almost spent too much time on policy and not enough time on politics."
It also puts pressure on Biden’s legacy — his ill-fated re-election campaign.
In April 2023, the 80-year-old Biden announced his candidacy for re-election. Biden lost to Trump in the 2024 election polls 14 months later when his poor performance in debates with the former president reignited voters' concerns about his health and ability to remain in the White House for another four years. Deep concerns about cognitive abilities.
President Joe Biden (right) and Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump participate in their only presidential debate at CNN studios on June 27, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Less than a month later, amid outcry from fellow Democrats, Biden announced he was ending his campaign and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as the party's 2024 standard-bearer.
Two and a half months after Trump convincingly defeated Harris, Biden is still facing a lot of blame for the Democratic Party's November election setback.
Longtime Democratic strategist James Carville told Fox News, "The story of Joe Biden is one of the great tragedies of American politics. I mean it really. He deserves to enjoy an honorable, well-deserved, acclaimed retirement." . But he didn’t.”
Carville, the political mastermind behind former President Bill Clinton's historic 1992 bid for the White House, said it was "hard to blame anyone but him."
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But Biden's friends and supporters believe the soon-to-be former president's negative views will change over time.
"Biden, because he's able to force through some legislation, is going to look pretty good," John McNeil, a longtime Democratic consultant and Biden supporter, told Fox News. “The fruits of some of what Biden has accomplished will only become visible in the coming years.”
But McNeil, the founding director of the super PAC Unite the Country, also acknowledged that Biden might be “viewed as just a blip between Trump One and Trump Two "Historians will talk about this. "