Most voters say Joe Biden ‘personally profited’ from son Hunter’s business dealings: poll
A majority of voters say President Biden “personally profited” from his son Hunter’s business interests — while more than two-thirds say the first son financially benefitted from his father holding elected office, according to a new poll.
The Economist/YouGov survey released Wednesday found that 53% of registered voters believe Joe Biden made money off Hunter’s lucrative overseas ventures, while 31% did not believe so and 16% were unsure.
At the same time, 69% of voters believe “that Hunter Biden has personally profited from his father Joe Biden’s positions in government,” compared with 15% who say he did not and 16% who were unsure.
Nearly half of independent (48%) and independent-leaning (42%) voters agreed that the commander-in-chief, 81, made bank off his 54-year-old son, while more than half of those voter groups (66% and 57%, respectively) said the son benefitted from the father’s powerful posts.
The poll also found that just 26% of registered voters have a favorable opinion of Hunter Biden — who faces federal charges for allegedly lying about his drug use when buying a handgun and evading $1.4 million in tax payments — while 63% have an unfavorable opinion.
More voters (45%) have a favorable view of Joe Biden than his son, but public opinion about him remains underwater, with 54% holding an unfavorable view.
First brother James Biden disputed the corruption allegation in a Wednesday interview with House lawmakers conducting an impeachment inquiry of the president, saying that “Joe Biden has never had any involvement or any direct or indirect financial interest” in his or Hunter’s business affairs.
Hunter’s former business associates have previously testified that Biden talked on the phone, met and dined with his son and brother’s foreign patrons during his vice presidency.
House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) has also obtained bank records that show James Biden wrote his brother $240,000 in checks, marked as loan repayments, in close proximity to foreign deals after Joe left office in January 2017.
The corruption question has roiled Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign, even as the president has evaded prosecution for “willfully” retaining classified documents at his personal office and residence after leaving the vice presidency.
Former President Donald Trump, Biden’s likely opponent in the November election, was criminally indicted four times last year in separate localities, including in Florida for allegedly keeping classified material at his resort home.
Another indictment in Manhattan charged the former president with business fraud for allegedly falsifying records to conceal “hush money” payments through his legal fixer to a porn star and ex-Playboy model before the 2016 election — money paid out to allegedly hide a decade-old affair.
Nearly half (49%) of registered voters believe Trump, 77, is guilty of those charges and 28% say he is not — but a plurality (43%) believe he will not receive a fair trial, compared with 41% who believe he will, when proceedings start on March 25.
A majority (51%) of voters say it is very likely or somewhat likely Trump will be convicted and only 33% say it is not very likely or not likely at all he will be found guilty.
The Economist/YouGov poll shows Trump and Biden in a statistical dead heat for the presidency, with 43% of registered voters saying they would vote for the former Republican president and 42% saying they would vote for the Democratic incumbent.
Among the 6% who say they would vote for someone other than Trump or Biden, just over a third (35%) say they would back independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Democrats retain a slight edge over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, with 43% of voters favoring the liberal party and 41% backing the GOP.
As Trump gears up for four potential criminal trials this year, he is also facing mounting monetary penalties following two civil verdicts in New York that could drain his assets of more than half a billion dollars.
Half of registered voters believe that the 45th president “misreported the value of his properties on official documents to obtain favorable loans and tax benefits” in one of the cases, while 30% said he did not and 20% were unsure.
Nearly two-fifths of voters (39%) say the order for Trump to pay $355 million in fines plus up to $95 million more in interest was “too harsh,” while 24% said it was “not harsh enough” and 28% said it was “about right.”
Respondents were also asked questions about the role of Congress in funding US allies such as Ukraine and Israel as they wage war against aggressors who invaded their country.
More registered voters (38%) believe neither side is winning in Russia’s war against Ukraine than those who believe the Kremlin (25%) or Kyiv (15%) has the upper hand.
A majority of voters (58%) want to either maintain current US funding for Ukraine’s war effort — which amounts to $113 billion since the February 2022 invasion by Russian forces — or increase it. Just 28% want to decrease the funding.
But there remains great uncertainty about the war’s outcome among the respondents, with 29% believing Russia is likely to win, 20% believing Ukraine is likely to triumph and 33% remaining unsure.
Most voters (56%) also want to increase or maintain current levels of military aid to Israel, which currently gets at about $3.8 billion per year from the US, whereas 30% want to decrease it.
That matches voters’ sentiments in the survey, 42% of whom say their sympathies lie with Israel and just 15% of whom say their sympathies are with the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Just over one in four voters (27%) said they had equal sympathy for both Israelis and Palestinians.
Americans are also split on Biden’s handling of the war, with 30% of registered voters saying it has been “about right,” but 26% saying he has been too supportive of Israel and 24% saying he has not been supportive enough.
The House and Senate are bickering over supplementary funding bills to send roughly $60 billion in additional military assistance to Ukraine and $14 billion to Israel’s forces — but hardline Republicans have stalled the measures until further US border enforcement funding can be approved as well.
House GOP lawmakers impeached Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over his mishandling of the nation’s border crisis, as record-setting numbers of illegal immigrants have entered the US since 2021.
Voters in the recent poll approved that decision by a 47% plurality. Just 28% disapproved.
The effort was overseen by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), who currently holds the highest approval rating of the “Gang of Four” that leads both chambers of Congress.
According to the poll, 43% of voters approve of Johnson, followed by 39% who approve of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), 36% who approve of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and 25% who approve of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
The Economist/YouGov pollsters surveyed 1,360 registered voters between Feb. 18-20, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
