A new leaked poll shows support for President Joe Biden plummeting in key battleground states around the country in the wake of his disastrous debate performance on Thursday.
Puck News gained access to an internal Democratic polling memo conducted 72 hours after the debate, and it’s bad: Several states that were considered solidly blue are now competitive for Donald Trump, including Colorado, New Hampshire, Virginia, and New Mexico. Plus, other Democrats, such as Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, are polling better than Biden in head-to-head matchups with the convicted felon and former president.
The polling came from OpenLabs, a nonprofit specializing in polling for Democratic organizations, and found that 40 percent of 2020 Biden voters now think the president should step aside, an increase from about 25 percent in May. Swing voters believe Biden should drop out by a 2-to-1 margin.
Democrats and Trump opponents may take solace in the fact that Biden only dropped in national head-to-head polling with Trump by 0.08 points. However, in battleground states, Biden is performing much worse. For example, Biden trails Trump by seven points in Pennsylvania, compared to five points before the debate. He also is behind Trump in Michigan (seven points), Georgia (10 points), and Nevada (nine points).
While this is only one poll, conducted immediately after the debate, it reportedly has been circulating in Democratic circles, and may be a factor behind the worries being openly expressed by top Democrats. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Biden’s mental condition was a “legitimate concern” on Tuesday, and one of the longest serving Democrats in the House, Representative Lloyd Doggett, has even called for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.
Can the Biden campaign right the ship and restore calm? ProPublica released an unedited September interview with the president that shows him alert and mentally fit, and Biden also appeared to be lucid and sharp in a North Carolina rally on Friday. He will need more positive counterexamples like those two, as well as a better performance at September’s presidential debate in order to assuage concerns not just from top Democrats, but also voters across the political spectrum.
