Not since Theodore Roosevelt ran against William Howard Taft in 1912 have voters had a chance to weigh the records of two men doing the job of president.
And while they have strong and similar criticisms of both President Biden and his predecessor, Americans have far more positive views of the policies of Donald J. Trump than for Mr. Biden, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll.
Overall, 40 percent of voters said Mr. Trump’s policies have helped them personally, compared to just 18 percent who say the same about Mr. Biden’s policies. By contrast, 43 percent of voters said Mr. Biden’s policies hurt them, nearly twice as many who said the same about Mr. Trump’s policies, according to the latest Times/Siena poll.
That presidents are often remembered more fondly after they leave office is nothing new. In a retrospective look at nine of the past 11 presidents, job performance approval rose 12 percentage points after leaving office, both on average and for Mr. Trump in particular, according to a June Gallup poll.
But recent Times/Siena polling underscores how comparatively low Mr. Trump’s policies are, even among groups influenced by policies that Democrats hope will energize 2024. And for many, it seems it’s all about the economy. .
Women are 20 percentage points more likely to say that Mr. Trump’s policies have helped them than Mr. Biden’s, despite the fact that Mr. Trump installed Supreme Court justices who eventually overturned abortion rights and that about two-thirds of women in America believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
Overall, 39% of women believe Mr. Trump’s policies have helped them, with 26% saying his policies have hurt them and 34% saying they haven’t made much of a difference.
In polls in six key battleground states in October, 42 percent of women said abortion should always be legal. Among that group, two-thirds said Mr. Trump’s policies had hurt them. But women who believed abortion should be more restricted — including those who said abortion should be mostly legal — were far more likely to say Mr. Trump’s policies helped them than hurt them.
“I like his policies,” said Nadeen Geller, 57, a housewife who lives in Staten Island, New York, and plans to vote for Mr. Trump. “I think they work.”
“I think financially it can do wonders,” added Ms. Geller, who is in favor of legalizing abortion before 15 weeks of pregnancy and later for health reasons. “Just everybody around thinks he can do a lot of good for this country.”
Views on the economy are deeply intertwined with the views of the candidates’ policies. And while Republicans almost universally view the economy as bad, Democrats are more evenly divided. Among voters who said the economy was in excellent or good shape, major stocks also said they felt a positive impact from Mr. Biden’s policies. Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who think the economy is fair or poor are more likely to say Mr. Biden’s policies have hurt them or haven’t made much of a difference.
Another of Mr. Trump’s early signature policies, his plan to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, was opposed by two-thirds of Hispanic voters, according to exit polls taken during the 2016 election. It was part of a series policies, including a travel ban from several predominantly Muslim countries, that helped fuel large Democratic voter turnouts and sweeping victories for Democratic candidates in the 2018 midterm elections.
Now, 37 percent of Hispanic voters said Mr. Trump’s policies have helped them personally, compared to 15 percent who said that about Mr. Biden’s policies.
“Cash flowed with Trump, even in the Covid years toward the end of his term,” said Henry Perez, 50, who lives in California’s Central Valley. He voted for Mr. Trump in 2016 but switched to Mr. Biden in 2020 because, as a union member, he was not thrilled with Mr. Trump’s policies toward unions.
Mr. Perez plans to vote for Mr. Trump again this fall, in part because of the economy.
“Just go to the pump and go to the store — that will tell you all you need to know about how Biden’s policies hurt me,” he said.
Black voters were less likely to say Mr. Trump’s policies helped them, but still viewed Mr. Trump’s policies more favorably than Mr. Biden’s.
Gameli Fenuku, a 22-year-old student in Richmond, Virginia, plans to vote for Mr. Biden — mainly because “he said he was going to make college more affordable for students.” But he said Mr. Biden’s policies hurt him overall and that Mr. Trump helped him.
“I don’t want to say it was just because he was president, but everything was definitely cheaper,” Mr. Fenuku said of Mr. Trump, adding: “We weren’t just handing out money to other countries.” He said he would consider voting for Mr. Trump, an attitude that was once rare among young black men like Mr. Fenuku but has become more prevalent in recent polls.
Mr. Biden’s student loan policies were also cited by Mary Toorak, 64, a nurse who lives in Pittsburgh. Ms. Toorak, a Democrat, said people around her were “more financially secure” under Biden, with new jobs, better pay and less student loan debt.
“One of my daughters had hers completely forgiven,” Ms. Toorak said, adding, “I still have a daughter with some student debt that looks like it will probably be forgiven at some level.”
But overall, by gender, age, race and education, voters were more likely to say Mr. Biden’s time in office had hurt more than helped.
“He doesn’t really take care of the house,” said Jonathan Jones, 35, of Plant City, Florida, citing wars and the economy as reasons he disapproves of Mr. Biden’s policies.
Mr. Jones, who worked in industry and now cares for his mother, voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 but plans to vote for Mr. Trump in 2024.
“Even though Donald Trump annoys me sometimes with his comments, he’s really been helping people,” Mr Jones said. “Whether it was food, housing, gas, jobs.”
For the candidates’ own supporters, views on their policies seem to match their enthusiasm gap. Half of Mr. Biden’s 2020 supporters said his policies have not made much of a difference to them at all. The vast majority of Mr Trump’s supporters in 2020 said his policies had helped them.
In fact, among the small number of Mr. Biden supporters in 2020 who said they planned to vote for Mr. Trump this fall, nearly 60% said Mr. Biden’s policies had hurt them. Only a handful said his policies had helped them.
Mr. Biden, however, is winning among large groups of voters who say either his or Mr. Trump’s policies have not made much of a difference.
And going back to that race in 1912, who did the voters end up choosing? Neither Taft, the incumbent, nor Roosevelt, his predecessor and challenger. Woodrow Wilson defeated both.
