WASHINGTON (AP) — Only about 2 in 10 Americans approve of President Joe Biden’s decision to pardon his son Hunter after earlier promising he would do no such thing, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
That displeasure tracks with the bipartisan uproar in Washington that ignited over the president’s about-face. The survey found that a relatively small share of Americans “strongly” or “somewhat” approve of the pardon, which came after the younger Biden was convicted on gun and tax charges. About half said they “strongly” or “somewhat” disapprove, and about 2 in 10 neither approve nor disapprove.
The Democratic president had said repeatedly that he would not use his pardon power for the benefit of his family, and the White House continued to insist, even after Republican Donald Trump’s election win in November, that Biden’s position had not changed — until it suddenly did.
“I know it’s not right to believe politicians as far as what they say compared to what they do, but he did explicitly say, ‘I will not pardon my son,'” said Peter Prestia, a 59-year-old Republican from Woodland Park, New Jersey, just west of New York City, who said he strongly disagreed with the move. “So, it’s just the fact that he went back on his word.”
In issuing a pardon Dec. 1, Biden argued that the Justice Department had presided over a “miscarriage of justice” in prosecuting his son. The president used some of the same kind of language that Trump does to describe the criminal cases against him and his other legal predicaments.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said it was a decision that Biden struggled with but came to shortly before he made the announcement, “because of how politically infected these cases were” as well as “what his political opponents were trying to do.”
The poll found that about 4 in 10 Democrats approve of the pardon, while about 3 in 10 disapprove and about one-quarter did not have an opinion or did not know enough to say. The vast majority of Republicans and about half of independents had a negative opinion.
For some, it was easy to see family taking priority over politics.
“Do you have kids?” asked Robert Jenkins, a 63-year-old Democrat who runs a lumber yard and gas station in Gallipolis, Ohio. “You’re gonna leave office and not pardon your kid? I mean, it’s a no-brainer to me.”
But Prestia, who is semiretired from working for a digital marketing conglomerate, said Biden would have been better off not making promises.
“He does have that right to pardon anybody he wants. But he just should have kept his mouth shut, and he did it because it was before the election, so it’s just a bold-faced lie,” Prestia said.
Despite the unpopularity of his decision, the president’s approval rating has not shifted meaningfully since before his party lost the White House to Trump. About 4 in 10 Americans “somewhat” or “strongly” approve of the way Biden is handling his job as president, which is roughly where his approval rating has stood in AP-NORC polls since January 2022.
Still, the pardon keeps creating political shock waves, with Republicans, and even some top Democrats, decrying it.
Older adults are more likely than younger ones to approve of Biden’s pardoning his son, according to the poll, although their support is not especially strong. About one-third of those ages 60 and older approve, compared with about 2 in 10 adults under 60.
The age divide is driven partially by the fact that younger adults are more likely than older ones to say they neither approve nor disapprove of the pardon or that they do not know enough to say.
About 6 in 10 white adults disapprove of the pardon, compared with slightly less than half of Hispanic adults and about 3 in 10 Black adults. Relatively large shares of Black and Hispanic Americans — about 3 in 10 — were neutral, the poll found.
“Don’t say you’re gonna do something and then fall back,” said Trinell Champ, 43, a Democrat from Nederland, Texas, who works in the home health industry and said she disapproved of the pardon. “At the end of the day, all you have is your word.”
Champ, who is Black, voted for Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris over Trump. “I just had my hopes up for her, but I wasn’t 100% positive,” she said.
Champ also said she does not approve of Biden’s handling of the presidency and thinks the country is on the wrong track. “While he was in office, I felt like I really didn’t see a lot of changes,” she said.
“I just felt like everything just kind of stayed the same,” Champ said.
Overall, though, the pardon did not appear to be a driving factor in many Americans’ assessment of Biden’s job performance. The share of Black Americans who approve of the way he is handling his job as president did fall slightly since October, but it is hard to assess what role the pardon may have played.
Jenkins is also chair of the Democratic Party in Gallia County, a strongly Republican area in southeast Ohio. He said things have not been going well for his businesses and, though he approved of Biden’s handling of the presidency, he believes the country is now on the wrong track.
He said that is partly because of Trump’s win in the presidential race, but it is also because Biden made his decision to leave the race in July and endorse Harris when there was not enough time for a more open primary process that might have led to a stronger Democratic nominee.
“I know he’s in a spot there, but jeez-o-Pete, he got down the wrong end,” Jenkins said of Biden. He said if Biden had stepped aside earlier and a nominee emerged from 15 or 20 candidates, “I think we would have won on that. Who knows?”
Prestia said he does not approve of Biden’s handling of the presidency but sees the country now on the right track because Trump is returning to the White House.
“Compared to Biden, he means what he says,” Prestia said.
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The poll of 1,251 adults was conducted Dec. 5-9, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.