Biden, Trump are least-liked pair of major party presidential candidates in at least 3 decades

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With the 2024 U.S. presidential election about five months away, a quarter of Americans hold unfavorable views of both major party candidates – President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump. This is according to a Pew Research Center survey of 8,638 adults conducted May 13-19.

That is the highest share expressing negative views of both candidates in surveys conducted at about this point in the election cycle by the Center and other organizations dating back to the 1988 election. And it’s nearly twice as high as four years ago, when 13% of Americans expressed unfavorable opinions of both Biden and Trump.

(The 2024 Center survey was conducted before Trump’s conviction on 34 criminal counts in the New York “hush money” case on May 30.)

The previous high point for negative views of both presidential candidates was in 2016. At about this point in the 2016 campaign, 20% of Americans expressed unfavorable opinions about both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Prior to 2016, no more than about one-in-ten Americans had held unfavorable opinions of both major party candidates at this stage of any of the seven previous presidential campaigns. And during several campaigns – most recently George W. Bush versus John Kerry in 2004 – no more than about 5% did.

In the current campaign:

Slightly more than a third of Americans (36%) have a favorable view of Trump and an unfavorable opinion of Biden.

Nearly as many (34%) have a favorable view of Biden and a negative one of Trump.

25% have unfavorable views of both candidates, while just 3% feel favorably toward both.

Americans’ opinions of Biden and Trump are largely unchanged since March.