A significant number of Americans appear determined to vote to reelect Pres. Joe Biden – no matter what the cost – a new national poll of voters reveals.

“Would you be more likely to describe reelecting Joe Biden as president this November as a safe choice for the country or a risky choice for the country?” the New York Times/Siena College poll, conducted June 28 to July 2, 2024, asked a national sample of registered voters.

One in five (19%) registered voters who say they’d vote for Biden rather than Republican Donald Trump, if the election were held today, also say they think reelecting Biden would be “a risky choice for the country.” Additionally, 23% of self-identified Democrat voters and 25% of those who voted for Biden in 2020 say it’d be a risk to keep him in office another four years.

Among all registered voters, nearly two-thirds (63%) consider Biden a risky choice, including 67% of men, 60% of women, 68% of Whites and Hispanics, 33% of Blacks and 58% of other ethnicities.

Younger voters are the most likely to consider Biden a risky choice. Three-fourths (73%) of those under 30 say Biden’s a risk, compared to slightly more than half (53%) of registered voters 65 or older.

Voters determined to stick with Biden aren’t just dismissing the “risk” factor, however. They’re also willing to overlook the president’s routine cognitive gaffes and advanced age. Currently 81, Biden would be 86 years old at the end of a second term as president.

Here, 61% of those who say they’d vote for Biden today also think “just too old to be an effective president. Of registered Democrat voters, 59% agree that Biden’s too old.

What’s more, 20% of those who plan to vote for Biden say they disapprove of the way he’s “handling his job as president” and 13% say they’ll vote for him even though they think he has “made the country worse since taking office.”