How does the number of lawsuits against Biden compare to recent presidents like Trump and Obama?
Executive summary
Counting lawsuits against presidents depends on what you count. Ballotpedia reports 133 multistate suits were filed against the Biden administration through his full term (multistate = two or more state AGs) [1], while some trackers and outlets show a much larger volume of individual and business-led suits against Biden — and far more litigation has been filed against President Trump in 2025 by multiple measures, including reports of several hundred legal actions in that year alone [2] [3].
1. What “number of lawsuits” actually means — different tallies, different stories
There is no single authoritative count of “lawsuits against a president.” Some counts measure multistate suits (two or more state attorneys general), where Ballotpedia counts 133 multistate lawsuits against Biden across his term [1]. Other tallies count suits from private parties, business groups, states individually, or a running litigation tracker; the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, for example, counts business suits and said it filed far more suits against Biden than it did earlier administrations (22 expected vs. three against Trump and 15 in Obama’s first term per the Chamber) [4]. Meanwhile, trackers of Trump’s 2025 administration litigation report hundreds of individual legal actions challenging executive moves [3] [2]. Any comparison must specify which universe of cases is being compared [1] [3].
2. Multistate lawsuits: Biden vs. recent presidents (clearest apples-to-apples measure)
Comparisons using multistate suits show Biden faced an elevated number: Ballotpedia states 133 multistate lawsuits filed against Biden by the end of his term [1]. Ballotpedia also catalogs multistate suits against Trump’s second term—24 as of May 25, 2025 [5]—and provides multi-decade charts for administrations back to 1981, allowing side‑by‑side comparisons on that specific metric [1] [5]. These figures reflect coordinated state AG actions and highlight partisan patterns — e.g., many Republican AGs brought the bulk of suits against Biden [6] [7].
3. Total litigation and single-party trackers: Trump’s 2025 surge
Other reporting tracks total legal challenges to an administration’s actions rather than only multistate AG suits. The Fulcrum and other outlets noted an explosion of litigation against Trump in 2025 — citing figures like 186 legal actions since January 2025 in one piece and reporting as many as 530 lawsuits in 2025 in another analysis — numbers that far exceed comparable single‑year tallies against Biden or Obama [3] [2]. Just Security and The Hill maintain litigation trackers that catalog hundreds of individual lawsuits and their assignments to judges, underscoring that the raw count of suits against Trump’s 2025 administration is much higher when counting all plaintiffs and case types [8] [9].
4. Who’s filing and why political alignment matters
Patterns of who sues matter: Republican attorneys general filed roughly 122 multistate suits against Biden in his term in multiple reports, while Democratic AGs brought far fewer suits against him — a dynamic that mirrors the prior era when Democratic AGs sued Trump more often [6] [7]. This partisan symmetry suggests litigation is often an extension of state-level political strategies and organized AG associations rather than a neutral barometer of legal error alone [6] [7].
5. Court outcomes and measures beyond counts
Counts alone don’t show legal success or impact. Congressional Research Service and Harvard Law Review-derived data compiled in CRS show differences in nationwide injunctions and win rates across administrations: for example, the first Trump administration saw many nationwide injunctions (CRS/Harvard counts showed a large number versus prior administrations), while early Biden years had fewer such injunctions but ongoing appeals — indicating complex litigation quality and remedies that simple totals miss [10]. Other trackers show Biden’s agencies winning a majority of environmental cases before Democratic-appointed judges (~65% win rate) — another lens to assess litigation effects beyond case volume [11].
6. Limitations and gaps in available reporting
Available sources vary in scope (multistate suits vs. all plaintiffs), date coverage (through 2024, mid‑2025, or late‑2025 snapshots), and methodology; some pieces report projected totals (Chamber) or focus on one subset (nationwide injunctions), so direct numeric comparisons require care [1] [4] [10]. Sources do not provide a single consolidated, up‑to‑date nationwide total combining multistate, state, private, and federal‑agency suits for each president, so statements that one president faced “X times more lawsuits” must cite the specific dataset used [1] [3] [2].
7. Bottom line for readers
If you compare multistate AG lawsuits, Biden’s administration saw a high number [12] relative to past administrations [1]. If you count all lawsuits and individual challenges in 2025, reporting indicates the Trump administration faced a significantly larger volume of litigation in that year alone, with outlets citing hundreds of suits [3] [2]. Which figure matters depends on whether you want to measure coordinated state‑level litigation, private‑party challenges, or total legal friction — and each tells a different political and legal story [1] [3] [4].