Democratic Decision-Makers Await Gold-Standard Polls Before Judging How Bad Debate Night Was for Joe Biden

Although many in the press called on President Biden to step down as the Democratic nominee after last week’s debate performance, decision makers are still waiting on polling that shows the depth of the damage Mr. Biden’s performance had on his standing with the public.The press’s reaction to last week’s debate probably reached its apogee when the New York Times’s editorial board called on Mr. Biden to drop out of the race Friday.While it’s clear that pressure from the public and opinion shapers in the press is mounting, it’s not yet clear where the bulk of elected Democrats and party officials stand on calling on Mr. Biden to drop out of the race.In conversation with MSNBC, Congressman Jamie Raskin described “very honest and serious and rigorous conversations taking place at every level of our party,” though he didn’t give a sense of how much support there might be for Mr. Biden dropping out.One of the key components missing for any campaign from within the party seeking to have Mr. Biden relinquish his position as the presumptive nominee, however, is polling data.As the Sun reported ahead of the debate, the true effects of the debate on the voting public will not be clear for between one and two weeks after the event.So far, however, it’s not looking favorable for Mr. Biden. A USA Today Suffolk University Poll survey, for instance, found that after the debate 41 percent of Democrats said that Mr. Biden should be replaced as the nominee, including 37 percent of those who said they plan to vote for him.For comparison, Republicans, responding to the same poll in the wake of the debate, expressed overwhelming loyalty to President Trump, with just 14 percent of Republicans and 12 percent of Trump supporters saying the GOP should replace him.“Democrats in the poll are offering tough love to President Biden by saying to him, ‘You’ve served us well, but try to see yourself last Thursday night through our eyes. Hold your head up high, it’s time to go,’” pollster David Paleologos told USA Today of the survey.Another survey from CBS over the weekend found that the proportion of Democrats who said Mr. Biden should drop out jumped by 10 points to 55 percent after the debate. Among the broader electorate, 72 percent say that Mr. Biden shouldn’t run, up from 63 percent in February.Another survey by FiveThirtyEight and Ipsos asked voters about Mr. Biden’s fitness both before and after the debate. The survey found that the proportion of voters who see Mr. Biden as in good or excellent mental fitness dropped to 20 percent after the debate from 27 percent before it.Likewise, the proportion who feel that Mr. Biden is in good or excellent physical fitness dropped to 15 percent after the debate from 21 percent before. Mr. Biden also saw the sharpest declines among Black respondents, 15 points, and those aged 65 years of older, 11 points.While the initial jolt in the polls is looking bad for Mr. Biden, it’s likely how these numbers evolve over the next few weeks that will weigh on decision making.In the past, some debates have had ephemeral effects on the opinions of the American public and it’s possible that the effects of last week’s debate — no matter how disastrous for Mr. Biden — fade with a little bit of time.So far, polls have also not given a sense for whether a potential replacement candidate might perform better than Mr. Biden and who that candidate might be.Decision makers are also likely waiting for their own internal polling as well as the results from major pollsters like The New York Times and Siena College and ABC News and The Washington Post.One of Mr. Biden’s pollsters, Molly Murphy, suggested in conversation with MSNBC over the weekend that those polls were in the field.“The most consequential question that we asked voters, who are you going to vote for — between Joe Biden and Donald Trump — that is where you continue to see voters saying they are supporting the president,” Ms. Murphy said.Axios also reports donors are waiting to see how the polling numbers settle over the next couple weeks before making a decision on what to do in the wake of the debate.

Democratic Decision-Makers Await Gold-Standard Polls Before Judging How Bad Debate Night Was for Joe Biden

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