A solid majority of Democrats think that President Joe Biden should suspend his reelection campaign, a new Associated Press-NORC poll has found.
Among Democrats surveyed in the AP-NORC poll, 65% think Biden should withdraw from the presidential race compared to the 35% who think he should stay in. This indicates an increase from previous polling as a Reuters-Ipsos poll released in early July found that just 32% of Democrats wanted Biden to drop out and a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll released July 11 recorded 56% of Democrats saying that Biden should exit the race.
“I don’t know if he can make it another four years or not,” a 58-year-old retired Democrat from Tennessee told the AP. “Shouldn’t he be sitting at his beach house taking it easy?”
Days after his debate performance in June where Biden struggled to speak in clear sentences and appeared exhausted, the president reportedly told close allies that he only had a matter of days to save his candidacy, the New York Times reported. Polls that show that the majority of Democrats think Biden should drop out undercut his claims that “average Democrats” want him to stay in the race and that it’s just party elites trying to push him out.
“The voters of the Democratic Party have voted,” the president wrote in a July 8 letter to Democratic lawmakers. “Do we now just say this process doesn’t matter? That the voters don’t have a say?”
While white and Hispanic Democrats both overwhelmingly think Biden should drop out, black Democrats are split about evenly on the question, according to the AP-NORC poll. Only about 3 in 10 Democrats surveyed think Biden is mentally capable of serving as president for another four years.
The AP-NORC poll surveyed 1,253 adults between July 11 and July 15 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.8 points.
The president said on July 11 that nothing would make him consider dropping out unless polling data indicated that “there’s no way [he] can win,” CNBC reported. Recent polls have former President Trump leading in every swing state and coming close to Biden in some states that have historically been Democratic strongholds like Virginia, New Mexico, New York and Minnesota.
Biden’s campaign is reportedly testing Vice President Kamala Harris’ electoral viability behind closed doors.
“I do have genuine concerns about his ability to hold the office,” one Colorado Democrat told the AP. “I think he’s frankly just too old for the job.”
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
(Featured image credit: Screen Capture/CSPAN)
All content created by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent and nonpartisan newswire service, is available without charge to any legitimate news publisher that can provide a large audience. All republished articles must include our logo, our reporter’s byline and their DCNF affiliation. For any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact [email protected].