The Biden campaign rolls on because the incumbent’s people have rigged the Democrat primary system to make it very difficult for anyone else to win and have sacred off any serious candidates. Any serious contender could beat Biden in the primaries, if they hadn’t been tampered with. Fortunately for Biden, much as for Hillary Clinton in 2016, serious contenders have been scared away leaving the circus acts.
Hillary Clinton cleared the field and won the primary and lost the election. Biden may succeed in clearing the primary field and also lose the election. That’s a fear that keeps leftists up at night. The only arguments that Biden’s people can make for him is that he’s the incumbent (an incredibly unpopular one) and that he prevailed in 2020 against Trump, and so he’s the only one who can prevail against Trump in 2024. There are obvious problems with that latter argument, but it’s the only thing keeping the Dems committed to him.
Despite horrendous numbers like these from his own party.
About three quarters of the public think Joe Biden is too old to effectively serve as President of the United States. While Republicans are more likely to think so, most Democrats believe it as well.
69% of Democrats think so.
When asked about the first word that comes to mind when they think of each candidate, 26% of all adults cited Biden’s age and 15% mentioned words associated with being slow and confused
Not what you want your brand to be.
Pessimism over the current president’s age is consistent among both younger and older adults, with at least 7 in 10 of those both under 30 and over 60 years of age viewing Biden as too old to effectively serve another term.
Among Democrats though, younger people view Biden’s age as a larger issue. Seventy-seven percent of Democrats under age 45 think he is too old to serve a second term as president effectively compared to 62% of those over 45. And while 54% of Democrats age 45 and older want Biden to seek a second term, only 34% of those under 45 agree.
You can blame ageism to some degree here. But age is also a matter of perception. Biden ‘acts old’ and Trump doesn’t despite being fairly close together in age. The age attacks hurt McCain, but not nearly as badly as Biden, because he occupied a kind of middle ground.
Despite widespread apprehension about Biden’s age among younger Democrats, 77% say they will at least probably vote for him if he is the Democratic party’s nominee, although only 28% indicate they will definitely do so.
Those are absolutely not the numbers you want for your party’s chosen candidate.