With Tuesday’s State of the Union address quite literally around the corner, President Joe Biden probably wishes he had a bit more momentum going for him.
The 80-year-old president will have to perform quite the mental and verbal gymnastics routine to explain away the litany of ongoing issues, none of which paint him or his administration in a particularly good light, plaguing this country currently.
Explaining all of that away would be a tall task for a man half his age, let alone one who sometimes appears to forget if he’s coming or going.
And yet, Biden’s Herculean labor became significantly more laborious after a brutal message delivered to him by Democratic voters: Thanks, but no thanks.
On Monday, The Associated Press, in conjunction with NORC at the University of Chicago, released a poll in which they asked Democratic voters if they would want Biden to seek a second term as president in 2024. The poll of 1,068 adults was conducted from Jan. 26 to Jan. 30, using a sample designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
Of those voters surveyed, only a meager 37 percent said “yes.”
It goes without saying that that’s putrid.
But it somehow gets worse for Biden when you actually read some of the comments these voters have.
“His age and possibly his mental acuity is not where I would want the leader of the country to be,” said Ross Truckey, a 35-year-old lawyer and voter from Michigan. “He, at times, appears to be an old man who is past his prime. Sometimes I feel a little bit of pity for the guy being pushed out in front of crowds.”
Age is not reversible and mental acuity does not get better with the passage of time. Those are immutable issues that Biden literally can’t correct before November of next year.
If anything, those issues will only worsen by next November.
“I, honestly, think that he would be too old,” said Sarah Overman, a 37-year-old Democrat in North Carolina. “We could use someone younger in the office.”
Again, if Ms. Overman feels that the president is too old in January 2023, how will she feel come November 2024? Better?
This may honestly be the biggest hurdle to Biden’s re-election aspirations, more so than any foreign spy balloons or economic maladies.
Because those aforementioned issues can be explained, or lied, away to a degree when it comes to blue voters and the pro-Biden establishment media.
But matters regarding his age?
Unless he can borrow a Time Stone from Benedict Cumberbatch, matters over his age will always persist for whatever remains of Biden’s political career.
And in an ironic twist, based on this poll from AP/NORC, there may very well not be much time left on that career.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
