Most Americans (86%) think President Joe Biden is too old to serve another term as president, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll.
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.
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?
And yet nobody is willing to call out the selfish pieces of shit who voted for Biden in the 2020 primaries. They are dragging all of us down with them.
Just because he has convinced himself that he is the only one that can beat Trump doesn't make it true.
In fact I would argue that him running again is somewhat selfish.
He has certainly had a good term, I am guilty of ignoring that, but he is old. Why have we let ourselves get into the position we are in.
Just because he has convinced himself that he is the only one that can beat Trump doesn’t make it true.
An unpopular president typically does better than a popular candidate. That's just how encumbancy works.
In fact I would argue that him running again is somewhat selfish.
Screw stats and precedent? Would you feel the same way if your favorite candidate ran and Trump crushed them by historic margins?
Why have we let ourselves get into the position we are in.
Because we're a party of compromise, and the other side is a party fo extremism. Our compromise involved someone with a lot of bullet points in his favor for our older voters while still appealing to enough of our younger voters.
crew stats and precedent? Would you feel the same way if your favorite candidate ran and Trump crushed them by historic margin
Not entirely sure I follow but I guess that, that attitude is from my pessimism that an 81 year old can win the presidency. You are right that incumbents have a major advantage and it does seem silly to throw that away.
I also don't have any idea who I would want to be running in his stead. As I have said elsewhere I am far left and like the Squads politics, but I am under no illusion that they could win a nationwide race. Even though the planet is burning.
Serious question: who do you think would be more likely to defeat Trump in November?
Like...there may very well be someone that you personally like more, but from a political strategy perspective, who's out there that you think has better odds at defeating Trump?
Harris? Bernie?
I'm not arguing the implications of any position, but strictly making observations, I feel that, love him or hate him, Biden is the one person with the best odds to beat Trump in a nationwide general election, and I feel that this will still be true in November.
Totally agree, and I don't have an answer. I am a filthy liberal so who I would want as president probably isn't who the nation wants.
Bernie is good but he has age issues as well.
Kamala is probably the only reasonable choice. She was vice president so she has the experience and she is an ok orator to my knowledge.
I haven't really paid much attention though to be honest. I want someone with AOC's politics leading the Democrats but that is never going to happen for lots of reasons.
In fairness, if 2020 had fallen differently Warren could've done it. If Bernie had backed her as a VP candidate instead of running, there was a solid shot they could've beaten Biden. She actually was leading the betting odds for "president" when the 2024 campaign began.
Warren had the opposite of what the Clintons had. She was a constantly progressive voter who could rally the moderate vote of a Harvard-trained law professor with a no-nonsense mindset.
She was also Obama-level known (unknown to common voters, but known to people who paid attention) so there wasn't years of hate-news on her. The worst they could get was a true story about her having Native American ancestors that was intentionally blown out of proportion. That's some Tan Suit shit there.
Kamala would rally the right so hard if she was the candidate. Heck when Biden ran in 2020, him picking her as a running mate caused the right to freak out enough already. They started these huge conspiracies saying day one Biden would step down and hand the presidency to her. Which even amongst some of my peers, I heard. It's scary how conspiracy theories can spread.
Matter of fact, I wonder if reminding them of this point would have them be more skeptical for the next scheme...
You mean more than "she's a Democratic VP"? I wasn't aware of that. She seemed the most conservative-friendly candidate to me in 2020 except Bloomberg. Guess I wasn't aware of the particular hatred. I wonder why that could be. Surely not because she's both a minority and a woman.
First of all, it's not "an admission" it's an observation.
Second, it's not about what I believe, it's an observation.
Third, I'm not going to speculate on what a bloc of MI l millions of voters would "rather" do in your framework.
Biden was the nominee in 2020 not because he was the candidate anyone liked best, but because he was the candidate that everyone disliked least. In 2024 he's still that candidate.
Further, and more to your point, the entire notion of "moderates would rather lose to fascists than compromise with progressives and leftists" is a wild misrepresentation if voting weight at best, and a total disconnect with the reality of the situation in all likelihood.
More accurately: if the left flank of the American left cannot get onboard with a candidate that the majority of the rest of the American left supports...not even when the alternative is a fascist...then it's that left flank of the party who bears responsibility for being uncompromising, and letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.
I'd love to see a progressive president, but for that to happen, they need the votes. And it's wildly unreasonable to expect the majority of the Democratic party back someone who won't be able to carry moderates in swing states just because the progressives won't back them unless they do.
Like it or not, leftists and progressives are a far more politically expendable bloc than swing state suburban moderates.
Like it or not, leftists and progressives are a far more politically expendable bloc than swing state suburban moderates.
I mean, until a general election is lost at which point leftists and progressives are blamed for it. And again, this sounds very much like an admission moderates are refusing to compromise with leftists and progressives. Followed up by moderates insisting the very real risk of Biden to Trump leads me right back to my question:
Isn't this an acknowledgement moderates would rather risk losing to fascists than compromise with leftists and progressives?
Finally, people have this weird obsession with inverting responsibility where the majority refuses to compromise but is responsible for nothing, the minorities walk away from the table and are at fault. It makes zero sense. If you're the majority, you're driving the decisions and thus you're responsible for the outcome.
Maybe enough of them would to shift the election towards Trump. Even if it's 60/40, losing 40% of the moderates could be a be death sentence for the Democratic candidate. Look at how many people "voted to send a message" in previous years. It's sad but it might be true.
The moderate Democrats are probably the single largest voting bloc in the country. They don't get to be "the problem" in a Democracy. They're the base.
This twerp is essentially saying "Everyone didn't give up what they wanted to give me what I wanted, so it's their fault if Trump wins because I didn't vote for Biden!"
This totally out of touch perspective and entitlement gives a bad look to all progressives.
Like...I totally get the frustration with the DNC but they're keeping their eyes on the prize here. If and when Trump eventually dies, I might be more sympathetic to a discussion about the progressive bloc holding out for a platform shift to the left, but as long as Trump is on the ballot, anyone not supporting him should be willing to put differences aside and unite against an existential threat.
This isn't 2012 where the Romney/Ryan ticket was simply running on a platform of conservatism...Trump is a different breed and has proven his disregard for our republic many times over.
Honestly, this sounds like an attempt to excuse the people who voted for him in the primaries but the reality is there is no good excuse. There were much better options. Voting for Biden in the primaries was selfish and foolish. If we aren't clear about that the people making selfish and foolish decisions in the primaries will continue to make selfish and foolish decisions.
I understand there are arguments to be made about it being foolish. I don't agree but I could understand the arguments.
My question is how is it selfish? There are infinite reasons why it's not selfish. For example, maybe you like moderates. Maybe you didn't want trump to win and you thought he was the best candidate. Maybe you like that he likes ice cream. Maybe you closed your eyes and picked randomly. None of these are selfish reasons. I struggle to think of a selfish reason to vote Biden, unless you are Biden voting for yourself.
They ignored the voices and pleas of progressive and leftist voices who have been suffering under establishment Democrat leadership. Rather than find a compromise candidate they chose the epitome of establishment Democrat expecting that those voices would show up to vote for him anyway.
Would you agree for the same logic for Republicans.
By voting a progressive leader, we would be ignoring the voices and pleas of those who have been suffering under the established Democrat leadership? Is this selfish?
What about of the roles were reversed? What if we had a progressive leader for the last 4 years and the moderates wanted Biden now. Would we be ignoring the voices and pleas of the moderates to keep our current progressive in? Is this also selfish?
You and I already came to the understanding that you are you applying your judgement consistently. I'm fine with your judgements against me so long as you apply them to moderates.
At this point, I think any vote toward Trump's main opposition is the correct vote. Anything else is, to use your word, foolish if you don't want fascism.
Meaning voting third party (or not voting) because your candidate isn't progressive/moderate/anything enough, is as good as voting for Trump.
You say "better options" but a clear majority of Democrats thought Biden was the better option. And all the other candidates that anyone took seriously are in the same age range as them. Nobody younger knocked on the door with a platform really worth backing. Buttigieg had no Federal chops whatsoever, Harris was a freaking prosecutor.
Or if you're just talking "better in general", then you're talking about the Progressives war. Bernie still hasn't realized he'll never win a Primary, and the way his campaign sabotaged and undercut Warren's with necessary voting demographics was a killshot. Grassroot movements to call her a secret Republican. They should be ashamed of themselves.
Didn't Warren's campaign just shoot itself in the foot, trying to play political games rather than focusing on things like policies? I never saw anyone call her a secret Republican. Just someone who picked incompetent people who run her campaign.
I mean....no. Her campaign was arguably the polar opposite of that to her detriment. She said she wanted to do something. Then she wrote up a detailed plan for it and published it, letting the other candidates find something in the details they didn't like and tear it apart.
She's a policy wonk who is a law professor first and a politician second.
I never saw anyone call her a secret Republican
There were a lot of "grassroots" youtube videos that came out and took lines of hers out of context. They would softball questions like "Warren is just as good as Bernie because they vote the same a lot, right? WRONG! Warren is a capitalist pretending to be progressive to steal your vote". And those grassroot video efforts started to trace back to Sanders campaign leadership. Nobody ever quite confirmed if Bernie directly knew his campaign was doing it, but the rule is usually that the campaign's action sare the candidate's responsibility.
She was specifically asked if she had a conversation with Bernie where he said a very specific sentence. Nobody knows where the media got that information, but she answered truthfully and moved on. Then Bernie denied it up and down and turned it political.
How do we know who told the truth? Because they hot-micced her at the end trying to talk to him, shocked at how he accused her of lying on national TV.
If one had anything bad to say about Warren it's that she didn't know how to fight dirty anymore than Mcain did in his campaign. I'd buy that.
He did better than he promised at basically everything. I really wanted someone who would push the envelope to the Left, but he never promised that and a lot of Democratic voters didn't want that anyway. He did recover us from COVID and dramatically improve the economy. He attempted some things that were more progressive than I expected of him, with various levels of success.
EDIT: he also compromised more with the Left than any president since Carter. Not much, but something
I personally liked Bernie but he sounded like a broken record at times. In hindsight I have my doubts he'd have won in the general anyway. Biden was easily the strongest candidate, who do you think was better?
Brother I don't even think the vast majority of the electorate can define fascist much less decide they'd rather have that than compromise with leftists.
Anyone but Biden or Bloomberg was a better choice.
Clinging to ideological purity while you lose elections isn't how you get a seat at the table. It's how you lose.
I won't be voting for Joe Biden in the 2024 primaries. I will be voting 3rd party. When they're ready to let go of their ideological purity and compromise with leftists and progressives I'll be here.
I mean, I've made telling moderate Dems how their crappy candidates are blowing elections for us at a time when we really can't afford to be empowering Republicans a personal crusade since at least 2016, but I'll admit I've had some pretty limited success with that effort