e; I wrote a better headline than the ABC editors decided to and excerpted a bit more
According to the poll, conducted using Ipsos' Knowledge Panel, 86% of Americans think Biden, 81, is too old to serve another term as president. That figure includes 59% of Americans who think both he and former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, are too old and 27% who think only Biden is too old.
Sixty-two percent of Americans think Trump, who is 77, is too old to serve as president. There is a large difference in how partisans view their respective nominees -- 73% of Democrats think Biden is too old to serve but only 35% of Republicans think Trump is too old to serve. Ninety-one percent of independents think Biden is too old to serve, and 71% say the same about Trump.
Concerns about both candidates' ages have increased since September when an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 74% of Americans thought Biden -- the oldest commander in chief in U.S. history -- was too old to serve another term as president, and 49% said the same about Trump.
Part that drew my eye,
The poll also comes days after the Senate failed to advance a bipartisan foreign aid bill with major new border provisions.
Americans find there is blame to go around on Congress' failure to pass legislation intended to decrease the number of illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border -- with about the same number blaming the Republicans in Congress (53%), the Democrats (51%) and Biden (49%). Fewer, 39%, blame Trump.
More Americans trust that Trump would do a better job of handling immigration and the situation at the border than Biden -- 44%-26% -- according to the poll.
So that bipartisan border bill stunt was terrible policy, and it doesn't seem to have done anything for the Democratic party politically
Can we please stop trying to compromise with fascists now?
The democratic primary has hardly started, its literally exactly the time to do something.
That's not how that works. Even if we somehow managed to bypass filing deadlines up get this theoretical candidate on the ballot (that have likely already been printed, and in many cases mailed out), they don't really have time to get their message out and persuade voters. You don't just start running for president 3 weeks from super Tuesday.
The only way Biden isn't the democratic nominee is if he steps down or is really incapable. And then it's pretty much guaranteed to be Harris. I don't think most people want that.
If democrats wanted a different candidate, they needed to start like 6 months ago minimum.
Democrats do want a different candidate, and have been very vocal about it for 4 years.
The DNC does not.
The DNC didn't make this decision. Biden did. Doesn't matter what the Jamie Harrison thinks, Biden's the president and no one wants to challenge their party's incumbent.
Yes that’s right. Biden, despite promising to be a 1 term transitional president, has reneged on that promise because his ego says that good presidents get 2 terms, and he thinks he’s so good he might as well be FDR 2.0
Well, the primary challengers disagree, I disagree as a Dem voter, and many others do as well. We have eyes, we see the writing on the wall, and it’s obvious Biden is going to lose, even to a disastrous opponent like Trump.
Biden doesn’t care what we think. He doesn’t care about the democratic spirit of a healthy primary. And so, he will lose this election, and risk what little democracy we have left in the process. Maybe not a big deal for a literal fossil with one foot in the grave like him, but for the rest of us, it’s very concerning to say the least.
Biden didn't shut down the primary either. He's running in it. They could have just canceled it.
There's no democratic solution to this problem. Either we say just let voters choose (a primary, but no one of consequence wants to challenge so we don't really have a real choice) or Biden unilaterally decides to step down (not "the democratic spirit" but probably the right choice). No one has shut down democracy, it's just a shitty system where the individual choices of a powerful person means no one who could be a successor thinks it's an optimal choice to challenge him.
This is categorically false. Biden is not running in the primary - he didn’t even go through the basic steps to get on the ballot in New Hampshire. The DNC absolutely refused to put together any kind of debate to draw in contenders. Further, he’s working behind the scenes with the state DNC commissions to either remove primary challengers from the ballot (South Carolina), or not hold primary elections at all (Florida).
I agree, he should drop out of the race, because poll after poll shows Biden losing to Trump badly in 6 out of the 7 key battleground states, while “any generic Dem” maintains a lead. The people have already spoken - we don’t want Trump, but we want Biden even less. Now why in the hell would you force run a candidate under those conditions?!
The democratic process demands that voters get to choose their representatives, and Biden isn’t allowing that to happen. Instead he’s working behind the scenes to threaten both the current primary challengers, as well as those “of consequence”, with burying their political careers if they dare to challenge him.
Ok, so you're just clueless about politics. Thanks for letting us know.
I know about the foolish SC play. I’m saying if he were participating in a primary in good faith, he would have gotten himself on the ballot.
Eh I'm good with Biden. Nobody else has shown themselves to be relevant enough for me to know their positions.
Because they're not being given the time to debate and be seen by the public like in elections past.
Because the DNC doesn't want someone else.
Neither Marianne Williamson nor Dean Philips would be presidential material if only more people could hear them speak. Williamson had plenty of time during the last primary to be seen and Philips is just an even more conservative Biden that has the sole virtue of not being on death's door.
Thank you. I've said this multiple times and people keep griping about it anyway.
It's pretty clear the vast majority of people just don't understand how this shit works. Don't get me wrong, it's a bad system. I just don't see how demanding people take actions so late in the process that it will benefit the GOP is productive.
I honestly don't see what action can be taken at this point. We have to either wait for Trump to get convicted or for one of the two of them to die or become to incapacitated to run. Neither of them will step down unless they have no choice.
I do think it’s important to note that Biden likely wouldn’t be running if it weren’t for Trump still (somehow) being a viable candidate. I think he’d agree that he’s too old for this shit, but if it’s going to be either him or Trump, I pick Biden with zero hesitation.
I don't know. People with the tenacity to get to the presidency cling to power like it was keeping them from dying. I honestly don't know if he would have dropped out of running for a second term.
You don't have a normal-sized ego and run for president unless you're Jimmy Carter.
I honestly do think these are exceptional circumstances. I don’t think Biden wants to keep dealing with all this shit. It’s got to be incredibly stressful - largely because he actually gives a shit and cares about the future of the country and the world overall. If the other candidate weren’t a complete and total psychopath, I think there are better than even odds that he’d have conceded the primary before it started.