'Trump Honeymoon' 54% of Americans Say "Trump Will Do Well If Inaugurated"

AP "Biden's Second Son Pardon, 22% Support in US... 51% Oppose"

Half of Americans have positive expectations for the return of President-elect Donald Trump to the White House in January next year.

According to a CNN poll conducted from the 5th to the 8th with 1,011 respondents and released on the 11th (local time), 54% of all respondents said they expect Trump to do well if he returns to the White House.

President-elect of the United States Donald Trump. Photo by Reuters and Yonhap News.

Fifty-five percent of respondents approved of Trump’s current transition process. Additionally, 48% of respondents expected Trump to bring better changes.

Thirty-eight percent of all respondents said "the situation in the United States is good," which CNN explained is the highest figure since a survey in December 2021. Most respondents said the situation in the U.S. is bad (61%), but only 15% said it was "very bad," the lowest rate in a CNN poll since May 2018.

CNN assessed, "This suggests that Trump, who failed to win re-election amid generally negative approval ratings four years ago, is spending a honeymoon period with the public as he prepares to return to the White House."

However, Trump’s approval rating is still below the levels of recent presidents-elect before their inauguration. Former President Barack Obama recorded 79% in a CNN poll before his inauguration, President Joe Biden 66%, former President George W. Bush 65%, and former President Bill Clinton 62%.

Meanwhile, only a minority of Americans support President Joe Biden’s pardon of his second son, Hunter Biden, with half opposing it. According to an AP poll conducted from the 5th to the 9th with 1,251 respondents and released on the same day, only 22% supported Hunter’s pardon. Fifty-one percent opposed the pardon, and 18% said they neither supported nor opposed it.

By party affiliation, 38% of Democrats, 12% of independents, and 7% of Republicans supported Biden’s pardon decision.

President Biden announced on the 1st that he would pardon his second son Hunter, who was convicted of gun possession law violations and tax evasion, claiming that the criminal charges were politically motivated.

Although support for Hunter’s pardon is low, there was little change in the evaluation of Biden’s job performance. In this survey, Biden’s approval rating was 39%, similar to AP polls since January 2022.

However, AP analyzed that Hunter’s pardon is causing political repercussions. Within the Democratic Party, criticism arose that this move weakens the party’s moral superiority compared to Trump, who has been criminally indicted four times. There were also calls for pardoning Trump for the hush money payment case related to a sexual misconduct allegation for which he was found guilty. Senator John Fetterman posted his first message on Trump’s social media platform Truth Social on the same day, claiming, "Both Trump’s hush money case and Hunter Biden’s case are nonsense, and pardons are appropriate."