The first presidential debate held last Thursday has opened the pandora’s box about President Joe Biden’s age and mental acuity and new poll results released Monday may not augur well for the incumbent.
Rising Discontent: Fifty-four percent of voters surveyed in a nationwide poll said Biden should be replaced as the Democratic nominee for the 2024 election. The results are based on a survey of 1,000 registered voters nationwide by Suffolk University/USA Today between June 28 and June 30. The margin of sampling error was +/-3.1 percentage points.
Incidentally, voters are not enthusiastic about Biden’s presumptive Republican rival either. Fifty-one percent of voters said Donald Trump should be replaced as the GOP nominee, the poll found. The pollster said the data underlines the widespread discontent with the current two major party nominees.
The clamor for replacing Biden as the Democratic party nominee is growing louder even among his party members. More than four in ten Democrats wanted Biden to be replaced. But only 14% of Republicans and 12% of Trump supporters said the former president should be replaced on the party ticket.
Nearly half of the voters from both parties agreed that Trump won the debate held on June 27, while a more modest 28% of Biden supporters said the president won the debate.
Mental sharpness was cited by most voters while discussing the debate performance. While Biden critics used words like “confused” and “incoherent,” those supporting Trump used terms like “coherent/articulate” and “cognizant/present.”
The debate also solidified support for Trump, with 31% saying his debate performance made them more likely to support him. Only 10% said the same about Biden. Notably, 9% of all voters said the debate made them more likely to back a third-party candidate.
The Matchups: The survey also found that Trump has built up a slight lead against Biden following the first debate. Forty-one percent of the respondents went with Trump as their presidential choice, three percentage points more than the 38% support Biden received. The lead, however, was within the poll’s margin of error.
An earlier survey done in May showed that both were deadlocked at 37%-37%.
The June survey showed 8% support for independent candidate Robert Kennedy Jr., while the other third-party candidates were backed by 3% of the voters. Eight percent of overall voters were undecided.
Trump’s position as an alternative choice also improved, with 25% picking him as their second choice, more than the 17% support Biden received for the same.
Among the pressing election issues were inflation/economy (35%), threats to democracy (21%) and immigration (19%). Those still undecided were concerned more about inflation/economy (46%), abortion (15%) and immigration (15%).
“This poll tells us that voters are dug in on both sides,” said David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center. He said that the Biden campaign must be concerned about the defection of second-choice votes of third-party voters, who now favor Trump instead of Biden.
“The Biden strategy all along was that as third-party candidacies evaporated, those voters would rotate to Biden. This research suggests the tables have turned and the Stein/West/RFK voters he may have been counting on in November have left him after Thursday's debate,” he added.
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