More than 6 in 10 U.S. adults say they are not confident in President Biden’s mental capability to effectively serve as commander in chief, according to a new poll released Monday.
The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey found an increase in the concerns about Mr. Biden from January 2022, when about half of those polled said they were “not very” or “not at all confident” in his capability.
More than 30% of Democrats polled also said they’re “not very” or “not at all” confident in Mr. Biden’s mental capability, up from 14% in January 2022. And 40% of Democrats said they are “extremely or very confident” in Mr. Biden’s mental abilities with roughly 3 in 10 saying they are “somewhat” confident.
The poll found the same number of voters — 6 in 10 — also say they lack confidence in the mental capability of former President Trump, who at 77, is the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination.
The survey comes ahead of Mr. Biden’s prime-time State of the Union address to the nation on Thursday, ramping up the pressure for the 81-year-old president to get through his remarks without any mental miscues or verbal stumbles.
Going into the State of the Union, just 38% of U.S. adults in the AP-NORC poll approved of Mr. Biden’s handling of the presidency, while 61% disapproved. He fared much better with Democrats, with 74% approving, compared to independents (20%) and Republicans (6%) when it comes to evaluating his performance.
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However, there is extreme disapproval of how Mr. Biden has handled certain issues, the poll found.
The poll revealed that 29% of adults approve of Mr. Biden’s handling of immigration, while 31% approved of his response to the war between Israel and Hamas and just 34% gave him good marks on the economy, all issues that will likely come up in the State of the Union.
Mr. Biden did slightly better on issues such as health care, climate change, abortion policy, and the war between Russia and Ukraine, with about 4 in 10 Americans approving how he handled those issues.
The poll of 1,102 adults was conducted Feb. 22-26, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population, according to AP. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.