Whopping 86% of voters feel Biden is too old to finish another term: poll
It’s the same old story.
A staggering majority of voters feel President Biden is too old to serve out a second term in office, according to a new poll — the latest data outlining growing concerns about the commander in chief’s advanced age.
A whopping 86% of US adults felt that the 81-year-old Biden is too old for another term in an ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday in the aftermath of a blistering special counsel report that noted apparent memory issues for the president.
Among those voters, 59% said that both Biden and his potential rival former President Donald Trump are too old, while only 27% felt Biden but not Trump is too old, per the poll.
Another 3% said only Trump, 77, is too old to serve as commander in chief again, bringing the total saying that about the 45th president to 62%.
When broken down along party lines, 73% of Democrats feel Biden is too old, while only 35% of Republicans said the same about Trump.
For independents, 91% felt that Biden is too old, while 71% believed the same thing about Trump.
Consternation about Biden’s age was turbocharged last week by special counsel Robert Hur’s report in which he found Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials.”
However, Hur also declined to press charges citing Biden’s cooperation, precedent — and concerns a jury would likely see him as a “well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory.”
In his 388-page report, Hur documented multiple instances in which Biden allegedly lapsed during his five-hour interview with the former Trump-appointed US attorney for Maryland.
The report claimed Biden “did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (‘if it was 2013 — when did I stop being Vice President?’), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began.
Biden and his allies adamantly refuted those characterizations.
“I am well-meaning, and I’m an elderly man and I know what the hell I’m doing,” Biden raged to reporters after the report dropped.
A myriad of polls have flagged concerns among voters about Biden’s age. He is already the oldest US president in history.
He would be 86 by the end of his second term if he’s re-elected.
If Trump, 77, were to win in November and serve out a full term, he would narrowly top Biden as the oldest president in history by a few months.
“Joe is 81, that’s true, but he’s 81 doing more in an hour than most people do in a day,” First Lady Jill Biden said in a recent message to supporters. “His age, with his experience and expertise, is an incredible asset and he proves it every day.”
Both Trump’s and Biden’s campaigns have taken turns highlighting the other’s verbal gaffes and mental lapses on the campaign trail, trying to paint the other as in a state of cognitive decline.
When asked about whether Biden should’ve been charged over the classified document ordeal, 38% felt he should’ve, compared to 34% opposed, and 28% undecided, the poll showed.
Trump was slapped by special counsel Jack Smith with 40 counts related to his alleged hoarding of classified documents, though Hur stressed a key difference was that Biden was more cooperative and didn’t try to obstruct the probe.
Forty-one percent of respondents said neither when asked who would do better overseeing confidential documents, compared to 33% who said Biden and 23% Trump.
The survey was conducted from Feb. 9–10 among 528 adults with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
