President Donald Trump leaves the White House next month with the country more sharply divided than when he moved in and amid caustic assessments of his record in office, a new USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds.
Fifty percent of Americans now predict history will judge him as a “failed” president.
The survey, taken in the waning weeks of his administration, shows the risks of actions he is contemplating on his way out the door. Americans overwhelmingly say issuing a preemptive pardon for himself would be an abuse of presidential power, and an even bigger majority, including most Republicans, say he should attend President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration to demonstrate the peaceful transfer of power.
Trump hasn’t announced whether he will attend the inauguration Jan. 20, and White House officials say he has been weighing pardons for himself and family members. On Tuesday, he issued 20 politically charged pardons and commutations, with more expected to follow. Much of his energy since the Nov. 3 election has been spent seeking ways to overturn the results, making allegations of widespread fraud.
“The last four years have been lacking in compassion and empathy, lacking in anything other than advancing the personal interests of President Trump and his friends and allies and family,” said Babette Salus, 60, a retired attorney and Biden voter from Springfield, Illinois, who was among those surveyed. “There have probably been worse presidents, (but) I’m not sure there has been a worse one in my lifetime.”
The poll of 1,000 registered voters Dec. 16-20 has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Asked how history would judge Trump’s presidency, 16% predict he will be seen as a great president, 13% as a good president, 16% as a fair president, and 50% as a failed president. Five percent are undecided.
“I’ll tell you what, 50 years out, Trump will be much better regarded than he is at the current time,” said David Cheff, 73, a Trump voter from Jacksonville, Florida. With the passage of time, he said, “Trump will look decent, for sure.”
“He had half the people loving him and half the people wanting him dead,” said Arsh Ganjoo, 19, a Biden voter from Great Falls, Virginia, who is a sophomore at the University of Texas. “I think he will be definitely taught in history classes and regarded as more of an anomaly rather than, you know, a great president.”
Trump’s ratings are more sharply negative than the ones Barack Obama, himself a controversial president, received when he left office four years ago. Then, a USA TODAY/Suffolk Poll found that half of Americans predicted history would view Obama in a positive light, with 18% calling him a great president and 32% a good one. Twenty-three percent called him a failed president.
