It turns out people like a normal, boring President. It’s been 15 years since Americans were this optimistic about the future.
Americans largely approve of Joe Biden’s performance as president so far, two new polls indicate.
The first, released Sunday by ABC and Ipsos, showed that nearly two-thirds of Americans are optimistic about the next year - the most optimistic they have been as a country in more than a decade. (Seriously, the last time they felt this good about where the US was headed was 2006, ABC reports.)
The second poll, released by Yahoo News and YouGov on Friday, looked specifically at Biden’s first 100 days in office. 57 percent said they approved of Biden’s handling of the pandemic. When asked if Biden’s performance has been better, worse, or the about same as what they expected, most people, 39 percent, said better, while 28 percent said worse and 24 percent said about the same.
Overall, Biden’s approval rating is 54 percent, according to Yahoo News. By contrast, Donald Trump’s approval rating peaked at 48 percent, five days into office.
The polls also suggest that a majority of the country - including both Democrats and Republicans - favour bipartisanship, and that Republican leaders aren’t doing enough to compromise. A little more than half say Biden is making the “right amount” of effort to compromise with Republican leaders.