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A new poll delivered really bad news for both President Joe Biden and Donald Trump on Thursday. Ironically, neither of them will see it that way.
Usually, we don’t bother with polls this early in the race because they are just about meaningless. In a head-to-head race, too much can happen in four months.
However, polls coming out now are not so much about November, but rather about what will happen in the coming days. Right now, they are all about whether Biden will continue his campaign or (voluntarily) make way for another candidate.
The president insists that he is the best (or even only) Democrat to defeat Trump, which sounds pretty ridiculous.
The most generous interpretation of the poll, which is likely the part that Biden’s campaign will highlight, is that it shows that he is still virtually tied with the former president.
Some crafty political consultant will try to spin this into a positive: Even after a terrible two-week stretch following a disastrous debate performance and calls from within his party to drop out, the race is still a dead heat.
The underlying numbers, however, are devastating.
Even a majority of Biden supporters now wants the president to step aside, and a whopping 85 percent of Americans feel that he is too old for the job.
In addition, while showing that he is trailing Trump by just 1 percentage point, Vice President Kamala Harris is up 3 percent in her hypothetical matchup with the former president.
Finally, Biden is unpopular. Half of all Americans have an unfavorable opinion of him personally, while 42 percent see him favorably.
For his part, Trump will probably like the poll since it says he is winning… at least against the guy he is currently running against.
A closer look at the numbers, however, shows all kinds of problems for his presidential bid.
First of all, Americans like him even less. His personal unfavorability is 59 percent. In addition, now that they know that not liking a politician because of their age is an option, voters increasingly feel that Trump is also too old to serve. That figure is up 5 points and now stands at 60 percent.
In addition, half of those polled also believe that Trump should drop out.
Finally, there is the Harris matchup that the former president loses.
Yes, it’s just one poll, but it indicates that, if Trump doesn’t run against Biden, he is in big trouble.
And, in this case, Harris even shares some of the president’s baggage on policy. She is beating him although voters know very little about her.
It is also noteworthy that Americans would not even be happy with her heading the ticket. A majority of them (53 percent) said they would be satisfied with Harris as the nominee.
Just imagine how well a more popular fresh face without all that baggage would do against Trump.
