Widespread concerns about President Biden’s age pose a growing threat to his re-election bid, with the majority of voters who supported him in 2020 now saying he is too old to lead the country effectively, according to a new poll from the New York Times and the New York Times. College of Siena.
The survey highlighted a fundamental shift in how voters who supported Mr. Biden four years ago came to see him. A striking 61 percent said they thought he was “just too old” to be an effective president.
A significant share were even more concerned: 19% of those who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020, and 13% of those who said they would support him in November, said the president’s age of 81 was such a problem that he was no longer able to do the job.
Concerns about Mr. Biden’s age cut across generations, gender, race and education, underscoring the president’s inability to allay concerns within his own party and Republican attacks portraying him as senile. Seventy-three percent of all registered voters said he was too old to be effective, and 45 percent felt he could not do the job.
This unease, which has long appeared in polls and in discreet conversations with Democratic officials, seems to be increasing as Mr. Biden prepares to officially obtain his party’s nomination. The poll came more than two weeks after scrutiny of his age intensified in early February, when a special counsel described him in a report as an “older, well-meaning man with a poor memory.” and “faculties diminished with age”.
Previous polls suggest that voters’ reservations about Mr. Biden’s age have grown over time. In six key battleground states surveyed in October, 55% of those who voted for him in 2020 said they thought he was too old to be an effective president, a sharp increase from 16%. of Democrats who shared this concern in a slightly different set. swing states in 2020.
Voters did not express the same concerns about Donald J. Trump, who, at 77, is only four years Mr. Biden’s junior. Their likely revenge would make them the oldest presidential candidates in history.
If re-elected, Mr Biden would break his own record as the oldest sitting president, while Mr Trump would be the second oldest if he wins. Mr. Trump would be 82 years old at the end of the term, and Mr. Biden 86 years old.
Otto Abad, 50, an independent voter in Scott, Louisiana, said he voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 but planned to return his support to Mr. Trump if they faced each other again. Last time, he wanted a less controversial figure in the White House after the chaos of the Trump administration. He now fears that Mr. Biden is not quite ready for a second term.
“If he was in such a mental state, I didn’t realize it at the time,” Mr. Abad said. “He has aged a lot. With the exception of Trump, all presidents seem to age significantly during their presidency.”
He added: “Trump, one of the few things I would say good things about him is that nothing seems to bother him. He seems to be in the same mental state as he was 10 years ago, 12 years ago, 15 years ago. He’s like a cockroach.
Mr. Abad is far from alone. Just 15% of voters who supported Mr. Trump in 2020 said they thought he was now too old to be an effective president, and 42% of all voters said the same — a much lower share than that of Mr. Biden. Polls from the 2020 election indicate that the share of voters who think Mr. Trump is too old has also increased over the past four years, but not as drastically as for Mr. Biden.
In the latest Times poll, 19 percent of all voters said Mr. Trump’s age was such a problem that he was not capable of assuming the presidency. And a sign of Republicans’ much greater confidence in their likely candidate, less than 1% of voters who supported Mr. Trump in 2020 said his age made him incapable.
Mr. Biden and his allies have dismissed concerns about his age and mental acuity as unfair and inaccurate. His campaign says its coalition will rally around the president again once it fully recognizes that Mr. Trump could win back the White House. He also claims that Mr. Biden faced age issues in 2020 and still won.
Yet Mr. Biden is now four years older, and it may be impossible to completely reassure voters about his age given the inexorable march of time. The poll indicates that concerns about him are not only pernicious, but also now linked to how many voters perceive him.
Calvin Nurjadin, a Democrat from Cedar Park, Texas, who plans to support Mr. Biden in November, said he was not convinced by politicians in his party who have publicly highlighted their blunt observations about the Mr. Biden’s mental acuity.
“You just kind of saw the clips of, you know, he has memories on stage and, you know, during debates and discussions where he freezes a lot,” said Mr. Nurjadin, who does the work of data entry. “The fact that he is sharp and fit is not very convincing.”
Even though the country is deeply divided and Republican voters have an overwhelmingly negative view of Mr. Biden’s age, Democrats appear no more concerned about the effects of time on Mr. Trump than on Mr. Biden. Similar shares of Democrats said each man was too old to be effective.
The poll attempted to get a deeper understanding of what voters thought about Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump’s abilities. The survey first asked whether each man was too old to be effective. Voters who answered yes were asked a follow-up question about whether that age was such a problem that Mr. Biden or Mr. Trump was not capable of doing the job, a stricter measure that prompted voters to consider the candidate’s basic ability to perform his duties.
Shermaine Elmore, 44, a small business owner in Baltimore, voted for Mr. Biden four years ago, supporting the Democratic candidate as he had in previous elections.
But he said he made more money under Mr. Trump, blaming inflation and gas prices for his losses under the Biden administration. He planned to vote for Mr. Trump this fall.
Of Mr. Biden, he said: “I don’t think he’s in any better health to make a decision if the country needs the president to make a decision.” »
Samuel Friday, 28, a database administrator and Democrat in Goose Creek, South Carolina, said he planned to vote for Mr. Biden but had some trepidation about whether the president would survive a second term.
“As far as his health goes, I think people have said he’s as healthy as he can be, which is always a positive,” he said. “But from a certain age, the risk of the president dying in office increases. And I’m not sure Kamala Harris is the choice I would want for president.”
Indeed, the vice president is not viewed more positively than Mr. Biden. Just 36 percent of all voters said they had a favorable opinion of Ms. Harris.
About two-thirds of those who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 expressed a positive opinion of Ms. Harris, almost the same as the president. And in a face-to-face with Mr. Trump, Ms. Harris did no better than Mr. Biden, losing by six percentage points.
Although Democrats are still divided, they also appear to be slowly uniting behind Mr. Biden’s candidacy. Forty-five percent of Democratic primary voters said he should not be their party’s nominee, up from 50 percent who expressed that view in July.
Margaret Stewart, a retiree from Westland, Michigan, said she would have preferred a younger candidate, but was not particularly bothered by Mr. Biden’s age. The president, she said, sometimes makes verbal missteps when stressed, but he is mentally fit to serve as president.
“Some of the little flaws he had, one, he’s had them forever,” she said, “and I honestly think his memory is better than mine when I was in my 40s.” She added: “He is not senile. »
Overall, voters generally express warmer views of Mr. Biden than of Mr. Trump. Fifty-one percent of registered voters said the president had the personality and temperament to be president, compared to 41 percent who said the same of Mr. Trump. Among Republicans, 27% said Mr. Trump lacked these characteristics, while 14% of Democrats said the same of Mr. Biden.
Brian Wells, 35, a lawyer from Huntsville, Alabama, described himself as a reluctant supporter of Mr. Biden. He was frustrated that there were no other options to move to the top of the presidential ticket and was convinced that Mr. Biden was not quite up to the job.
Still, Mr. Wells plans to vote to re-elect the president in November.
“He is incompetent. He is clearly struggling to fulfill his duties,” he said. “He has clearly reached the point where he is too old for the job. But he’s still one step ahead of Trump.”
Camille Boulanger reports contributed.
The New York Times/Siena College poll of 980 registered voters nationwide was conducted on cell and landline phones, using live interviewers, February 25-28, 2024. The margin of error sampling for the presidential ballot choice question is plus or minus 3.5. percentage points among registered voters. Crosstabs and methodology are available here.
