Nearly two-thirds of Democrats say President Joe Biden should withdraw from the presidential race and let his party nominate a different candidate, according to a new poll, sharply undercutting his post-debate claim that “average Democrats” are still with him even if some “big names” are turning on him.

The new survey by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, conducted as Biden works to salvage his candidacy two weeks after his debate flop, also found that only about 3 in 10 Democrats are extremely or very confident that he has the mental capability to serve effectively as president, down slightly from 40% in an AP-NORC poll in February.

The findings underscore the challenges the 81-year-old president faces as he tries to silence calls from within his own party to leave the race and tries to convince Democrats that he’s the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump. The poll was conducted mostly before Saturday’s assassination attempt on Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. It’s unclear whether the shooting influenced people’s views of Biden, but the small number of poll interviews completed after the shooting provided no early indication that his prospects improved.

    • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      They’re likely accurate. Anecdotal, but many of my very liberal friends have lost confidence in Biden’s ability to lead the Dems to victory, and many people I know who are ‘swing voters’ are convinced that Biden is senile. That’s not getting into the conservatives I know, who I would not regard as having relevant opinions. Furthermore, a number of sitting congressmembers of his own party have expressed that he should step down - which alone is a ruinous and public expression of a loss of confidence at the highest levels for Biden to win the campaign. It’s a millstone around his campaign’s neck, and even winning them back won’t remove it - the only thing that he can do to remove that weight from the Dem ticket is by stepping down himself.

      • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldM
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        3 months ago

        Since the debate I haven’t spoken to a single left-leaning person who wants Biden to stay in or thinks he can win. Not one.

        • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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          3 months ago

          I was both until Congresscritters started coming out against him after the debate. I’m willing to accept that seeing him have a bad day - even a really fucking bad one - is not necessarily an indictment of his fitness to run a vigorous campaign, but I knew it was over once sitting Congressmembers were asking him publicly to step down. That’s… that’s lethal. Regardless of whether or not he’s fit to run a campaign.

          I think it’s not impossible for him to win (though I was in full panic mode when Trump had an assassination attempt and I thought it might be a Dem behind the gun), but IF he does win, it will be wholly in spite of him being the candidate, and it will be an uphill fucking battle the whole way. He no longer advantages the Dem ticket - he’s a handicap.

          • Blackbeard@lemmy.worldM
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            3 months ago

            Yeah I’ve also started trying to figure out, in the grand scheme of things, if there’s a scenario where replacing an incumbent would be more beneficial. Like, how bad would the polls have to get before the party stepped in and made an unfortunate but necessary decision? Losing all swing states? Losing Dem lean states? Losing solid blue states? Losing by double digits? Or maybe the candidate would have to get worse? What if he has a stroke in October? What if he dies in October? Is that how bad it would have to get?

            The only silver lining I’m seeing right now is the 538 model calling for a Biden win (sorta), and it’s predicated on economic fundamentals which I just don’t think hold the line like they used to. I think the game has fundamentally changed, as has political typology, and that’s the reason he’s drowning in swing states.

  • Nurse_Robot@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I genuinely think a change this close to the election would be a terrible mistake. We need Joe now because he refused to step down for too long and the DNC refused to nominate someone else anyway. We’re committed

    • memfree@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

      In my dream world, Biden is currently refusing to step down because he wants the RNC to focus on him, but he will hand the torch to Kamala in the next week or so before it is too late to change any ballots (Ohio and such).

    • iAmTheTot@sh.itjust.works
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      3 months ago

      This close? The democratic convention hasn’t even happened yet. There’s still months to the election proper. Both France and the UK just held elections wherein the entire cycle lasted less than the time we have until election day still. And they had higher voter turnout than the US typically has.

      Time is not the problem here. We do not need Biden. There are better candidates.

  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    He needs to step down. He did much better work as president than many of his critics give him credit for, and his initial decision to run again, while in hindsight fucking ruinous, was operating off of conventional political wisdom. What he needs to do now is recognize that he’s lost the confidence of the party and the electorate, and step down, regardless of what he thinks about the sharpness of his faculties.

  • eran_morad@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I’ll vote for any D, but Biden should fuck off. The only thing that matters right now is to win. Biden’s fucked.

  • LEDZeppelin@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    And this is the difference between democrats and republicans. Even after getting his ass impeached twice, inciting insurrection, getting convicted for rape and felonies - voters and his party are firmly behind Trump.

    Whereas Biden must step aside because he stuttered during debate. A lot of people - including those demanding peace in Ukraine and Middle East - are in for a solid pikachu face when they help elect literal Nazi because of these fucking purity tests

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      purity tests

      Please explain how both parties having zero standards for their politicians will result in a net positive for the country.

      Like, you know we can just run candidates who meet voters standards rather every four years demanding we throw our standards away. Right?

      We’d get more votes, less Republicans in office, and more progress when Dems are in office.

      What’s the downside?

      Less pro-corproate moderates who disagree with the party platform?

    • apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      One is democratic and dirty, the other is authoritarian. Which alignment practice do you want? I fucking don’t want the latter.

    • AlwaysTheir@lemmy.one
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      I don’t think this is about purity tests so much as popularity. People don’t want to vote for him. It doesn’t matter if he’s pure or not.

    • scarabine@lemmynsfw.com
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      Yeah. It’s a genuinely pathetic trait for Democratic voters. Republicans think it’s hilarious and weak, and they’re correct. It is. It makes Democratic voters incredibly easy to troll and manipulate with rumor mills such as this thread.

      • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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        3 months ago

        I get ya and im not looking for biden to drop but I likely would not like the democrats as much if they did not resign way easier (franken) and question their members less critically. That being said it can be quite annoying as well.

        • scarabine@lemmynsfw.com
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          3 months ago

          Questioning and reevaluating is good, but context matters. No choice exists in a place apart from its surrounding context. That means that sometimes you have to recognize when the context is such that perfect becomes the enemy of good.

          Not being able to do that is a huge flaw, and it’s a vulnerability that the wealthy are happily helping Republicans exploit right now.

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Beating trump is more important than Joe Biden being president.

    Especially when most of his time in office he wouldn’t stop talking about how powerless he is as president and how if anyone thought he could accomplish anything it just meant they’re ignorant.

    So like, what’s the benefit of insisting it’s Biden when he’s not who voters want?

    It just seems like a terrible risk for zero gain.

    If what matters is the House and Senate, then we need a charismatic presidential candidate who helps Dems down ballot.

    • takeda@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Actually, he accomplished quite a lot without having control of Congress and 6-3 activist SCOTUS.

      And no, Manchin and Sinema didn’t give Democrats control of the Senate in 2021-2022 and changed parties since then.

      Trump’s only success with full control of Congress was to pass the horrible tax bill.

      Biden’s also extremely successful on the foreign policy. Not only he reunited NATO (Putin attacked Ukraine, because he was convinced there’s no way he can do it), but also got two additional members to join, who historically were neutral.

      Biden’s major weakness is that he doesn’t broadcast his successes well and media doesn’t do that either for him. The only time he successfully did mention his accomplishments was during state of the union.

      • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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        And no, Manchin and Sinema didn’t give Democrats control of the Senate in 2021-2022 and changed parties since then.

        You forget that in the 2020 election no one thought we’d get the Senate and all of his campaign promises were made under the assumption that it would be a Republican majority Senate he’d have to get stuff thru.

        That’s what Biden signed up for.

        Having less Republicans in the Senate wouldn’t make that harder.

        So unless your argument is Biden lied from day one, I don’t see how what you’re saying makes anything better.

        Or why there’s any benefit to Biden over anyone else.

        What point are you trying to make for why keeping Biden is a good idea?

        • takeda@lemmy.world
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          And he still did quite well. I was preemptively responding to people who say Biden had a majority in Congress, that’s why I started with “And no,”

          So unless your argument is Biden lied from day one, I don’t see how what you’re saying makes anything better.

          And I’m saying he accomplished a lot despite that. Not everyone is as successful, Obama screwed up a single payer even though he had super majority.

          • givesomefucks@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            And I’m saying he accomplished a lot despite that

            And yet, you don’t seem capable of naming three things that Biden accomplished that any Dem Pres wouldn’t have known.

            Weird…

      • eran_morad@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Doesn’t matter. Only thing that matters is to win enough mindfucked undecideds in a few states. You must accept the reality that in our perverted system, substance is but one factor, and often ancillary to showmanship. Politics is not an intellectual endeavor. It’s mainly bullshit. That’s why trump is winning.

  • ralphio@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    The fact that Trump has seriously turned down the noise against Biden since the calls for him to step down should let you know who he wants to face in the polls.

    • mosiacmango@lemm.ee
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      3 months ago

      They didnt “turn down the noise” to keep him in the race. They just let the media run with the bone that helped them and had their surrogates attack.

      You had speaker johnson saying biden was senile because he needed teleprompters. Meanwhile, days later Mikes teleprompter breaks at the RNC and he just trails off into nothing, stands around awkwardly and walks off. Sounds like the 50s something Johnson is pretty senile, huh?

      You got Trump dozing off while sitting at the RNC, but nah, its old sleepy Joe, isnt it? The dude that had “executive time” penciled in everyday till 11am while he was in the Whitehouse and spent 1/3rd of his days as president golfing talking about someone else napping on the job.

      Come the fuck on with this. Conflict drives page views, so the media leaned into an easy one that the Trump campaign helped push whole hog.

      • Atelopus-zeteki@kbin.run
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        Trump was dozing off in the middle of his fraud trial. smh. I’ve never been on trial, but dang, I think I would want to pay attention.

  • Atelopus-zeteki@kbin.run
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    3 months ago

    Gee, let’s see, a fascist who has guaranteed us dictatorial retribution, or Biden who has done a decent job despite an uncooperative congress and judiciary. Decisions, decisions. SMH.

    • knightly the Sneptaur@pawb.social
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      I can tell you who of those two that I think will win the swing states in November, but you’d probably interpret this as political opppsition rather than resignation to the fate that the parties have already chosen for us.

  • Prox@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    This poll is irrelevant. Great for generating sensational articles, sure, but this question doesn’t matter. There’s only one poll question that means anything at this point:

    If the 2024 US presidential election were held today, would you cast your vote for Joe Biden or Donald Trump?