One in three Democrats thinks Biden should quit US presidential race, poll finds
WASHINGTON - One in three Democrats think US President Joe Biden should end his reelection bid, following last week’s debate against Republican Donald Trump, but no prominent elected Democrat does any better than Mr Biden in a hypothetical matchup against Trump, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed on July 2.
But the two-day poll found that both Trump, 78, and Mr Biden, 81, maintain the support of 40 per cent of registered voters, suggesting that Mr Biden has not lost ground since the debate. Election Day is Nov 5.
Among the names of top Democrats put before respondents, only Mrs Michelle Obama, wife of former Democratic president Barack Obama, outperformed Mr Biden and led Trump 50 per cent to 39 per cent in a hypothetical matchup. Mrs Obama, author of the best-selling 2018 memoir Becoming, has said repeatedly she does not intend to run for president.
Some 32 per cent of Democrats in the poll said Mr Biden should give up his reelection bid, following a debate in which he stammered throughout and failed to energetically challenge Trump’s attacks, which included numerous false claims.
Trump faces his own political liabilities, though the criminal cases related to his attempts to overturn his 2020 defeat have ground to a halt. In a close matchup, neither candidate can afford to lose the support of a sizable chunk of his political base.
Democratic voters have long harboured doubts about Mr Biden’s bid. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted in January, while the party’s nomination contest was still under way, 49 per cent of Democrats said he should not run again in 2024.
Mr Biden has vowed to stay in the race. But should he exit, the Democrats whose names emerge as possible replacements perform only as well or worse than Mr Biden against Trump in hypothetical matchups, according to the poll.
Vice-President Kamala Harris, for example, trailed Trump by one percentage point, 42 per cent to 43 per cent, a difference that was well within the poll’s 3.5 percentage point margin of error, making Ms Harris’ showing statistically just as strong as Mr Biden’s.
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Ms Harris has stepped out of Mr Biden’s shadow in recent months, becoming a key voice in the administration for abortion rights. The Reuters/Ipsos poll found 81 per cent of Democratic voters viewed Ms Harris favourably, compared to 78 per cent who viewed Mr Biden the same way.
Mr Biden, however, at 81 years old, was seen as too old to work in government by 59 per cent of Democrats, a reading similar to the results in a January poll.
California Governor Gavin Newsom, a rising star in the Democratic Party who many observers expect could seek the presidency in a future election, performed marginally worse, trailing Trump 39 per cent to 42 per cent.
None of the elected Democrats tested in head-to-head matchups against Trump have formally declared their candidacies.
The poll, which was conducted online, surveyed 1,070 US adults nationwide. REUTERS
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