Only about 2 in 10 Americans approve of President Biden’s decision to pardon is son Hunter after 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 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. Biden 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 Donald Trump's election, that Biden’s position had not changed — until it suddenly did.
Issuing the pardon on 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 language Trump does to describe the criminal cases against him. 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. 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.