Nearly two-thirds of Democrats say President Joe Biden should withdraw from the presidential race and let the party nominate another candidate, according to a new poll, significantly weakening his post-debate claim that the “average Democrat” is still his supporter even if some “big names” have turned against him.
The new poll from the AP-NORC Center for Public Policy Research, conducted as Biden attempts to reposition himself as a candidate two weeks after his debate debacle, also finds that only about 3 in 10 Democrats are extremely or very confident that Biden has the mental capacity to serve effectively as president, down slightly from 40% in a February AP-NORC poll.
The survey results highlight the challenges facing the 81-year-old president as he tries to silence calls from within his own party for him to drop out of the race and convince Democrats he is the best candidate to beat Donald Trump. The poll was largely conducted before the attempted assassination of Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. It's unclear whether the shooting affected people's views of Biden, but the few polling interviews conducted after the shooting offered no early indications that Biden's prospects have improved.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris has faced further criticism amid the growing debate about whether Biden should withdraw, but polls have shown that she has the same favorability rating as Biden, but a slightly lower percentage of Americans have an unfavorable view of her.
Unhappy with both candidates
The poll finds that Black Democrats are Biden's strongest supporters, with about half of those surveyed saying he should continue to run, compared with just 3 in 10 white and Hispanic Democrats. Overall, 7 in 10 Americans think Biden should drop out, and Democrats are only slightly less likely than Republicans and independents to say he should run a new candidate.
“I have genuine concerns about his ability to do the job,” said Denver Democrat Andrew Holcomb, 27. “Frankly, I think he's too old to be in that position.”
Janie Stapleton, a 50-year-old lifelong Democrat from Walls, Mississippi, disagreed, saying Biden is the “best candidate” for president.
As people consider their options this election season, they're not just unhappy with Biden.
About 6 in 10 Americans want Trump gone, but relatively few Republicans are in that camp.
“Sad Choice”
When it comes to Biden, younger Democrats are especially likely to want him out and to voice their dissatisfaction: Three-quarters of Democrats under 45 want him out, while about six in 10 older Democrats want him out.
“I think they were both poor choices,” said Alexi Mitchell, a 35-year-old public servant in Virginia who identifies as an independent leaning to the Democrats. While she believes Biden is still mentally capable of doing his job, she worries the collapse of his base in recent weeks makes him a weak candidate no matter what happens. “If he can't control his own party, that's a fatal flaw,” she said. “He's put us in a bad position where Trump could win.”
Despite bullish rhetoric from Biden's campaign heading into the debate, the showdown only put the president in a deeper hole. Democrats are now slightly more likely to say they are dissatisfied with Biden as a candidate than they were before his approval rating dipped. About half are dissatisfied, up from 4 in 10 in a June Associated Press-NORC poll.
“The debate was a time when Republicans were very satisfied with Trump's candidacy, and it was a time when Republicans were very satisfied with Trump's candidacy. There were too few interviews conducted after the assassination attempt to say definitively whether Republicans, or the American public as a whole, supported Trump since then.”
David Parrott, a Democrat from Soddy Daisy, Tennessee, said he was in favor of Biden given his age but still expressed concern about the possibility of a second term.
“I don't know if he's going to live another four years,” said Mr. Parrott, a 58-year-old retiree. “Shouldn't he be relaxing at his beach house?”
Recent upsets have made Americans significantly more likely to believe Trump could win the 2024 election than Biden (42% to 18%), although about a quarter believe the two have an equal chance of winning the presidential election.
Even Democrats are relatively pessimistic about the party's prospects in November.
Only about a third of Democrats believe Biden has a better chance of winning than Trump. Three in 10 think the two are equally likely to win, and 16% say the Republican is more likely to win. In contrast, Republicans are overwhelmingly confident that Trump is more likely to win.
Americans are split evenly when it comes to which candidate is best equipped to handle a crisis, 38% to 28%, and about which candidate has a better vision for the country, with 35% in favor of Biden and 34% in favor of Trump.
Despite the disappointments Biden is facing, the president insists it's not too late to turn things around, noting that past presidents have bounced back from behind at this stage in the campaign. In an interview with BET News on Tuesday, he said many voters are still not focused, adding, “The point is, we're in the game right now.”
The poll also showed some positives for Biden: 40% of adults say he is more honest than Trump, while about two in 10 think the opposite is true.
A majority of Democrats (about 6 in 10) say VP Harris would be a good president, while 22% say they don't think so and 2 in 10 say they don't know enough about the topic to make a judgment. The poll also found that 43% of U.S. adults have a favorable view of VP Harris and 48% have an unfavorable view. Slightly more have an unfavorable view of Biden, about 6 in 10 Americans.
The survey was conducted before Trump selected freshman Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate. The survey found that Vance remains unknown to most Americans: Six in 10 don't know enough about him to form an opinion, 17% have a favorable view, and 22% have an unfavorable view.
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The poll was conducted July 11-15, 2024 among 1,253 adults using a sample drawn from NORC's probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
