Voters in swing states across all major demographic groups consider President Joe Biden too old to be elected to another presidential term, according to Bloomberg.
Eight in 10 voters in swing states declared that Biden was too old when they were asked to name the front-runner in the 2024 presidential election. The poll followed a special prosecutor’s report that labelled the 81-year-old president as “an elderly man with a poor memory.”
Alternately, less than half of respondents thought his main rival, 77-year-old Donald Trump, was also too old to be elected. Still, Trump faces other unrest among voters in swing states, including concerns that the former president is “dangerous.”
The importance of Biden’s age and intelligence to voters is reflected in the fact that over 1,000 survey respondents have mentioned these topics before being asked about them directly. The poll of 4,955 voters was conducted from 12 to 20 February and had an error margin of 1 percentage point.
Majorities of Black voters, young voters and women called Biden too old when asked about the two likely primary candidates in November’s presidential election. Even among those who indicated they planned to vote for Biden, seven in 10 said he fit the description. At the same time, voters were more likely to describe Trump as being mentally fit or in good health.
Caroline Bye, a vice president at Morning Consult, argued that the age issue was felt more acutely for Biden than for Trump, even though the latter was just four years younger.
Biden’s age is clearly a sticky narrative that the president’s campaign is going to have to contend with.
Nearly six in 10 swing-state voters called Trump dangerous, with 28% of those who plan to vote for him in November agreeing that he posed a threat. Less than half of Biden’s supporters suggested the same about their candidate.
Criminal prosecution is another obstacle for Trump in the presidential election. About half of voters in swing states indicated they would not want to vote for him if he was convicted in any of the criminal cases he had been indicted on.
These include allegations of hush payments to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, mishandling classified documents, as well as separate state and federal cases accusing the former president of conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Trump supporters, however, were more likely than other voters to dismiss the accusations.
