The news keeps worsening for President Joe Biden and improving for his hated rival, former President Donald Trump.
The latest New York Times/Siena poll has Trump ahead by 6 points among likely voters. The number among registered voters is even worse: 8 points. And Democrats are pushing Biden to get out of the race before they get creamed in November.
Those threatening storm clouds scudded across Biden’s already dark-gray sky just days after the Times told Biden he must step down, and election forecaster Nate Silver predicted a Trump victory.
The Poll
The numbers from the Times survey reveal a stark truth: Americans, or at least those surveyed, think Biden is too old and frail to be president.
“Mr. Trump now leads Mr. Biden 49 percent to 43 percent among likely voters nationally, a three-point swing toward the Republican from just a week earlier, before the debate,” the Times reported. “It is the largest lead Mr. Trump has recorded in a Times/Siena poll since 2015. Mr. Trump leads by even more among registered voters, 49 percent to 41 percent.”
But even worse for Biden, “A majority of every demographic, geographic and ideological group in the poll — including Black voters and those who said they will still be voting for him — believe Mr. Biden, 81, is too old to be effective,” the Times summary continued:
Overall, 74 percent of voters view him as too old for the job, up five percentage points since the debate. Concerns about Mr. Biden’s age have spiked eight percentage points among Democrats in the week since the debate, to 59 percent. The share of independent voters who said they felt that way rose to 79 percent, nearly matching the Republican view of the president.
But even worse for the aging president — who crashed and burned in his debate with Trump — is his number among registered voters: He’s trailing Trump 41-49.
Clearly, the panic among Democrats after the debate must be spreading even to the White House itself. As Axios reported, the Times/Siena is the gold standard of polls for “Democratic elites.”
Biden Won’t Quit
When the poll hit the news, Biden and cackling Vice President Kamala Harris were on a campaign phone call to calm down terrified staffers.
Axios reported “a defiant” Biden’s stalwart defense of his position as nominee and master of his party: “I am running. I am the leader of the Democratic Party. No one is pushing me out. I’ve been knocked down before and counted out my whole life. When you get knocked down you get back up.”
That contradicts the Times’ scoop that Biden is “weighing” an end to his candidacy.
Axios surveyed several polls, all of which show Trump ahead. CNN’s gave Trump a 6-point lead.
“A sustained polling decline could open the floodgates for more Democrats to call for Biden to step aside, especially if the surveys suggest that Harris would perform against Trump,” noted Axios. Democratic Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas was the first Democrat to call for Biden to quit the race. Others will surely follow.
“Two vulnerable House Democrats — Reps. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and … Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) — said Tuesday they expect Trump to defeat Biden,” the website reported.
Indeed, as Axios reported before the Times bomb dropped, Biden “is staring down a growing consensus among frustrated and weary congressional Democrats that he should abandon his re-election bid — a sentiment that could soon spill out into public view.”
“Several” of those Democrats told Axios that delegates want Biden to quit the race. One said “the dam is breaking.”
“A third House Democrat said Biden should ‘step down and help lead a transition of candidacy’ and that a ‘very large majority of the caucus shares this sentiment’,” Axios continued. Congressmen are “adamant” in telling Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York that Biden has to step aside:
One House Democrat told Axios that Jeffries has had “a lot of communication” with his members to “gauge feelings and sentiment and … figure out where the consensus really is.”
The lawmaker added that a “very broad swath of the House Democratic caucus representing diverse ideology, geography and backgrounds … believes that a change in candidacy is necessary.”
Biden and Jeffries spoke by phone Tuesday night, a source familiar with the matter told Axios.
Meanwhile, Democrats elected in 2018, “many representing swing districts,” the website reported, “told Jeffries … that they cannot risk their reputations by supporting Biden.”
That’s where the “consensus” comes in, the website continued:
Lawmakers are “resigned to the inevitability” that Democrats need a new candidate and have come around to Vice President Kamala Harris as the replacement, one source said.
But, again, Biden’s campaign avers that he is “absolutely” not dropping out of the race, just as Biden did today.
Why Democrats think Harris can defeat Trump is a mystery. Her only claim to fame before Biden picked her to be vice president was that she rose to political success and prominence after serving in several unique positions under former California House Speaker Willie Brown.
RCP Average
Before the Times poll surfaced, through July 2, the RealClearPolitics Average of national polls gave Trump a 2.9-point lead over Biden.
Trump won seven of the last 10 polls (with one tie), including the CNN survey that, again, had him ahead by six points.
Biden is also behind in all the key battleground states except Wisconsin, where he and Trump are tied.
Whatever the numbers, Biden has lost the confidence of everyone, including the all-important editorial page of The New York Times.
“At Thursday’s debate, the president needed to convince the American public that he was equal to the formidable demands of the office he is seeking to hold for another term,” the Times said. “Voters, however, cannot be expected to ignore what was instead plain to see: Mr. Biden is not the man he was four years ago.”
Thus, it concluded:
The clearest path for Democrats to defeat a candidate defined by his lies is to deal truthfully with the American public: acknowledge that Mr. Biden can’t continue his race, and create a process to select someone more capable to stand in his place to defeat Mr. Trump in November.
It is the best chance to protect the soul of the nation — the cause that drew Mr. Biden to run for the presidency in 2019 — from the malign warping of Mr. Trump. And it is the best service that Mr. Biden can provide to a country that he has nobly served for so long.
And Silver, a Biden partisan, gave Trump a 65.7 percent chance of beating Biden.
