Trump Friendly Pollster Stuns With Survey Comparing Biden And Trump’s Job Performance
President Donald Trump arrives for the premiere of first lady Melania Trump’s movie “Melania” at The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
President Donald Trump was hit with some very negative numbers this week from a polling firm that is typically considered far more favorable to the president.
According to a Rasmussen survey released on Tuesday, 56% of likely U.S. voters disapprove of Trump’s performance thus far in the White House. The numbers got worse from there, especially when his performance was compared to that of former President Joe Biden.
When asked who did a better job as president, 48% answered with Biden and 40% answered Trump. Another 8% say they have performed about the same. The survey was conducted between February 2-4 among more than 1,000 likely voters. It carries a margin of error of 3%.
Rasmussen is widely considered a conservative polling outlet favorable to the president, and he’s often cited them to talk up his approval among voters. Rasmussen’s social media accounts regularly boost conservative talking points and culture war issues, while slamming Democrats and the left as out of touch.
According to the latest numbers, 29% strongly approve of Trump’s job performance, while 46% strongly disapprove.
Trump critics on social media were shocked to see the Rasmussen numbers for the president.
“Even Rasmussen, Trump’s favorite pollster, just dropped a brutal number,” political strategist Chris D. Jackson wrote.
Others also took the numbers and their polling origin as a win for the former president.
Rasmussen also released survey numbers that showed 58% of likely U.S. voters do not believe they are living in Trump’s “golden age” as he pledged would happen when first coming into office. Only 27% believed they are living in that era, and 15% were unsure. In January 2025, the pollster found that 52% agreed with Trump’s vow that a new “golden age” was coming for the country.
Rasmussen Reports head pollster Mark Mitchell argued that while he would likely not agree with voters who would choose Biden over Trump today, the numbers are undeniable.
“If an election were held TODAY between Trump and Biden, Biden would win,” he wrote on Tuesday on X. “There are a million valid arguments you can make that explain why that’s retarded, and I would agree with most of them. But that doesn’t change the fact Biden would win.”
The post Trump Friendly Pollster Stuns With Survey Comparing Biden And Trump’s Job Performance first appeared on Mediaite.
A Rasmussen survey released this week shows that 56% of likely U.S. voters disapprove of President Donald Trump’s performance in the White House.
Zachary Leeman
Tue, February 10, 2026
Zachary Leeman
Tue, February 10, 2026
MEDIAITE
President Donald Trump arrives for the premiere of first lady Melania Trump’s movie “Melania” at The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center For The Performing Arts, Thursday, Jan. 29, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Allison Robbert)
President Donald Trump was hit with some very negative numbers this week from a polling firm that is typically considered far more favorable to the president.
According to a Rasmussen survey released on Tuesday, 56% of likely U.S. voters disapprove of Trump’s performance thus far in the White House. The numbers got worse from there, especially when his performance was compared to that of former President Joe Biden.
When asked who did a better job as president, 48% answered with Biden and 40% answered Trump. Another 8% say they have performed about the same. The survey was conducted between February 2-4 among more than 1,000 likely voters. It carries a margin of error of 3%.
Rasmussen is widely considered a conservative polling outlet favorable to the president, and he’s often cited them to talk up his approval among voters. Rasmussen’s social media accounts regularly boost conservative talking points and culture war issues, while slamming Democrats and the left as out of touch.
According to the latest numbers, 29% strongly approve of Trump’s job performance, while 46% strongly disapprove.
Trump critics on social media were shocked to see the Rasmussen numbers for the president.
“Even Rasmussen, Trump’s favorite pollster, just dropped a brutal number,” political strategist Chris D. Jackson wrote.
Others also took the numbers and their polling origin as a win for the former president.
Rasmussen also released survey numbers that showed 58% of likely U.S. voters do not believe they are living in Trump’s “golden age” as he pledged would happen when first coming into office. Only 27% believed they are living in that era, and 15% were unsure. In January 2025, the pollster found that 52% agreed with Trump’s vow that a new “golden age” was coming for the country.
Rasmussen Reports head pollster Mark Mitchell argued that while he would likely not agree with voters who would choose Biden over Trump today, the numbers are undeniable.
“If an election were held TODAY between Trump and Biden, Biden would win,” he wrote on Tuesday on X. “There are a million valid arguments you can make that explain why that’s retarded, and I would agree with most of them. But that doesn’t change the fact Biden would win.”
The post Trump Friendly Pollster Stuns With Survey Comparing Biden And Trump’s Job Performance first appeared on Mediaite.
Jake Angelo
Tue, February 10, 2026
FORTUNE
President Joe Biden delivers remarks during the CNN presidential debate at the CNN Studios on June 27, 2024, in Atlanta.(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)More
President Donald Trump rode Americans’ gloom about inflation and the economy to a surprising reelection in 2024. Then, a year later, upstart Democrats including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani rode concerns about “affordability” to an even more surprising sweep.
It turns out the inflation wave of 2021–23 was a really big deal, according to the mother of American opinion polling.
A long-running Gallup poll found the percentage of U.S. adults who anticipate a high-quality life within the next five years slumped to 59.2%, its lowest share since the organization began asking this question nearly two decades ago.
The poll—based on data collected over four quarterly measurements in 2025 among 22,125 U.S. adults—revealed a notable decline in sentiment, measuring a 3.5-percentage-point drop-off from 2024.
“If you look at the optimism metric for future life, that really came down a lot from 2021 to 2023, and that corresponds really closely with the worst of the inflation crisis,” Dan Witters, research director of the Gallup national health and well-being index, told Fortune. “The economic pressures of being able to afford things like food and fuel and gas and health care—that really can have a deleterious effect.”
Moreover, the study found the number of Americans who rate both their current and future lives high enough to be characterized as “thriving” dropped to 48%, down more than 11 points from a high in June 2021, and the sixth-lowest rating out of all 176 measurements taken since 2008. The last time the rating dropped below its current level was in April 2020, the month after the COVID pandemic first hit the U.S.
The results come as a confluence of factors have impeded the American way of life. Over the last several years, inflation, domestic conflict, economic uncertainty, and political upheaval have made many Americans feel more pessimistic about the future. Americans’ confidence in finding a job has hit rock-bottom, and homeownership has grown increasingly unattainable for younger generations. All this as the expanding K-shaped economy is leaving millions of Americans in the dust.
“Their optimism for the future is now eroding,” Witters said. “[It’s] eroding at a rate that’s kind of significantly greater than what we find with how they evaluate their current lives.”
Inflation and politics spurring pessimism
Yet even as inflation cooled in 2024, dropping to 2.5% year over year that August, Americans remained pessimistic. Witters attributed that persistent pessimism to political partisanship.
“In 2025, the steep drop among Democrats coupled with no change this time among Republicans don’t cancel each other out. And so you have that real net negative in the overall U.S. total.”
Witters mentions it’s common for life ratings to swing dramatically among political parties when control of the White House changes. Still, expectations for a high-quality life dropped off significantly among Democrats, a 7.6 percentage point decline in future life ratings from 2024. For context, Republicans’ sentiment dropped 5.9 percentage points after Biden assumed office in 2021 while Democrats’ optimism rose 4.4 points.
Yet even among Republicans, optimism rose just 0.9 points last year. And Independents’ optimism fell 1.5 points.
“I think that to the extent that that kind of partisanship can kind of influence the overall national numbers, clearly that’s happening here,” Witters said.
Gallup asked respondents to choose a step on a ladder numbered from zero to 10 that best represented their quality of life, where zero indicated the worst possible life and 10 indicated the best possible life.
By race and ethnicity, Hispanic adults saw the steepest drop-off in optimism from the year prior, falling six points. White adults also saw a notable decline of 4.6 points, while sentiment among Black Americans fell 2.2 points.
President Joe Biden delivers remarks during the CNN presidential debate at the CNN Studios on June 27, 2024, in Atlanta.(Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)More
President Donald Trump rode Americans’ gloom about inflation and the economy to a surprising reelection in 2024. Then, a year later, upstart Democrats including New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani rode concerns about “affordability” to an even more surprising sweep.
It turns out the inflation wave of 2021–23 was a really big deal, according to the mother of American opinion polling.
A long-running Gallup poll found the percentage of U.S. adults who anticipate a high-quality life within the next five years slumped to 59.2%, its lowest share since the organization began asking this question nearly two decades ago.
The poll—based on data collected over four quarterly measurements in 2025 among 22,125 U.S. adults—revealed a notable decline in sentiment, measuring a 3.5-percentage-point drop-off from 2024.
“If you look at the optimism metric for future life, that really came down a lot from 2021 to 2023, and that corresponds really closely with the worst of the inflation crisis,” Dan Witters, research director of the Gallup national health and well-being index, told Fortune. “The economic pressures of being able to afford things like food and fuel and gas and health care—that really can have a deleterious effect.”
Moreover, the study found the number of Americans who rate both their current and future lives high enough to be characterized as “thriving” dropped to 48%, down more than 11 points from a high in June 2021, and the sixth-lowest rating out of all 176 measurements taken since 2008. The last time the rating dropped below its current level was in April 2020, the month after the COVID pandemic first hit the U.S.
The results come as a confluence of factors have impeded the American way of life. Over the last several years, inflation, domestic conflict, economic uncertainty, and political upheaval have made many Americans feel more pessimistic about the future. Americans’ confidence in finding a job has hit rock-bottom, and homeownership has grown increasingly unattainable for younger generations. All this as the expanding K-shaped economy is leaving millions of Americans in the dust.
“Their optimism for the future is now eroding,” Witters said. “[It’s] eroding at a rate that’s kind of significantly greater than what we find with how they evaluate their current lives.”
Inflation and politics spurring pessimism
Yet even as inflation cooled in 2024, dropping to 2.5% year over year that August, Americans remained pessimistic. Witters attributed that persistent pessimism to political partisanship.
“In 2025, the steep drop among Democrats coupled with no change this time among Republicans don’t cancel each other out. And so you have that real net negative in the overall U.S. total.”
Witters mentions it’s common for life ratings to swing dramatically among political parties when control of the White House changes. Still, expectations for a high-quality life dropped off significantly among Democrats, a 7.6 percentage point decline in future life ratings from 2024. For context, Republicans’ sentiment dropped 5.9 percentage points after Biden assumed office in 2021 while Democrats’ optimism rose 4.4 points.
Yet even among Republicans, optimism rose just 0.9 points last year. And Independents’ optimism fell 1.5 points.
“I think that to the extent that that kind of partisanship can kind of influence the overall national numbers, clearly that’s happening here,” Witters said.
Gallup asked respondents to choose a step on a ladder numbered from zero to 10 that best represented their quality of life, where zero indicated the worst possible life and 10 indicated the best possible life.
By race and ethnicity, Hispanic adults saw the steepest drop-off in optimism from the year prior, falling six points. White adults also saw a notable decline of 4.6 points, while sentiment among Black Americans fell 2.2 points.
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