President Joe Biden has finally united almost the entire the nation as one, although not in a way he might have planned. A poll released Monday shows broad public belief he is just too old to be effective in a second term.
The revelation comes in polling from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research which finds much of the public across all party affiliations united in sizing up the one trait octogenarian Biden cannot change.
AP reports in the poll, fully 77 percent said Biden is too old to be effective for four more years. Not only do 89 percent of Republicans say that, so do 69 percent of Democrats. That view is held across age groups, not just by young people, though older Democrats specifically are more supportive of his potential for a 2024 bid.
In contrast, about half of U.S. adults surveyed say Trump is too old for the office, even as Democrats are far more likely to disqualify Trump by age than are Republicans.
The poll of 1,165 adults was conducted Aug. 10-14, 2023, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
The poll’s clear message as defined by the AP report is Americans are saying out with the old and in with the young, or at least younger, than the 80-year-old Democrat now in the White House.
This is far from the first time Biden’s age has been noted by both the general public and intending voters.
Biden is the oldest serving president in U.S. history and if he is re-elected in 2024 and serves a full term, he would be 86 when leaving office in 2029.
A poll conducted earlier in August specifically asked voters about their views on Biden’s advanced years.
The Redfield & Wilton Strategies survey was conducted for Newsweek.
It found a majority of Democrats said they were “concerned” about Biden’s ability to perform his job.
The outlet reported the exclusive polling found while a majority of Biden voters were concerned about the president age, there was even greater division about whether his age should rule him out of seeking a return to high office.
