According to the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll, a majority of Americans think that both Joe Biden and Donald Trump are too old to run for second terms.
Of course, the subhead tells the rest of the story.
This is not really surprising since polls have shown all along that Americans want neither Biden or Trump to be the next president. Yet, here we are.
The numbers are pretty overwhelming, particularly in Biden’s case.
ABC News reports (archive link):
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. [emphasis mine]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.
That 91% of Indies who think Biden is too old must be causing shock waves of panic in the White House. They can win without Republicans, but they cannot win without Indies.
This poll may go a long way to explaining Hillary Clinton’s recent statement that Biden’s age is a “legitimate issue.”
There was much speculation on Twitter (X) about this comment: is this a signal that it’s time to push Biden out the door, groundwork for attacks on Trump’s age, her own senile ramblings?
Trump may have (alarmingly) mistaken Nikki Haley for Nancy Pelosi recently, but at least he doesn’t yet sound like this:
A large majority of Americans believe both President Biden and former President Trump are too old to serve another term in the White House.Eighty-six percent of Americans think Biden, 81, is too old to serve another term as president, while 62% think the same of Trump, 77, according to the results of a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.. . . . Trump bested Biden on which candidate was better suited to handle immigration and the border, with 44% of respondents favoring Trump, compared to 26% who believe Biden is more trustworthy with that task. Voters also gave the edge to Trump in handling crime (41%-28%), the economy (43%-31%), and inflation (41%-31%).Meanwhile, Biden had an edge over Trump when it comes to which candidate respondents trust more with issues such as abortion (37%-28%), health care (38%-28%), and climate change (39%-22%).
The majority think both potential presidential candidates are too old for a second term, but with Biden, it’s the apparent dementia that takes the biggest toll on his numbers and seemingly breaking the dam that’s been shoring him up.
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