A new poll finds that most Americans — including a majority of voters who describe themselves as supporters of President Joe Biden — believe the Democratic candidate should drop out of the presidential race, two weeks after a disastrous debate performance that left many questioning whether Biden has the mental acuity to continue his campaign.
The ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll published on Thursday still shows Biden running neck-and-neck with his Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump. The two are virtually tied, with Trump attaining 47 percent support and Biden receiving 46 percent, with a margin of error of 2 points.
The numbers are similar to data published in April, when Trump had a 2-point lead over Biden, indicating that the post-debate fallout hasn’t had a major impact on Biden’s chances for reelection.
Biden’s approval rating also didn’t appear to change after the debate, although his numbers have consistently been low. Thirty-six percent of Americans approve of Biden’s job performance as president, versus 35 percent who said the same in April; meanwhile, 57 percent currently disapprove of his job performance, equal to the 57 percent who expressed the same sentiment months ago.
Still, most voters believe that Biden should drop out.
According to the poll, 67 percent of voters overall in the U.S. think Biden should step aside. This includes 62 percent of self-described Democrats or Democratic-leaning voters. Even 54 percent of people who call themselves Biden supporters think he should no longer be the party’s nominee.
Notably, 50 percent of Americans also said Trump should step aside and let a different Republican run. But Biden clearly suffered more from the debate than Trump did — only 7 percent of voters said Biden appeared more favorably following that event, with 50 percent saying they viewed him less favorably. For Trump, 27 percent viewed him more favorably after the debate, while only 22 percent viewed him less so.
If Biden does drop out, which he has so far maintained he won’t be doing, Vice President Kamala Harris is perhaps the most likely person to replace him at the top of the ticket. When the poll asked voters to choose between her and Trump, Harris outperformed the former president, with Harris attaining 49 percent of the vote and Trump securing 46 percent.
The poll was conducted July 5-9, mostly after Biden gave an interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos and made a campaign stop to do damage control in Madison, Wisconsin. Those actions have thus far failed to quell the calls for Biden to step aside from pundits and members of his own political party.
So far, 10 Democrats in the House of Representatives have openly stated that Biden should drop out of the race in favor of a candidate who will perform better against Trump. Several prominent Democratic leaders are also showing signs that they’re questioning whether Biden should remain the nominee.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York), for example, has been adamantly promoting Biden in public, despite reports that he has indicated he’s open to replacing Biden behind closed doors. And Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-California), the former speaker of the House, hasn’t offered decisive answers to reporters regarding her support for the president.
There are also rumblings that Democratic senators have qualms with keeping Biden as the Democratic nominee. Late on Wednesday, Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vermont) became the first Democrat in the Senate to decisively say that Biden should drop out.
“We cannot unsee President Biden’s disastrous debate performance. We cannot ignore or dismiss the valid questions raised since that night,” Welch wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post, adding:
I understand why President Biden wants to run. He saved us from Donald Trump once and wants to do it again. But he needs to reassess whether he is the best candidate to do so. In my view, he is not. … For the good of the country, I’m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race.
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