Devastating New Poll Finds Nearly Two-Thirds of Democrats Want Biden to Drop Out

AP Photo/Gerald Herbert

A devastating new poll from the Associated Press and National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago (NORC) released on Wednesday found that nearly two-thirds of Democrats want President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race.

According to the survey of 1,253 adults — conducted July 11-15 — 70 percent of Americans and 65% of Democrats believe Biden should withdraw from the race and allow his party to pick a new nominee to face off against former Donald Trump this fall.

While 57% of respondents also indicated that Trump should step aside, he performs significantly better with members of his own party (73% of Republicans say he should stay) and independents. Seventy-seven percent of that latter group think Biden should take his hat out of the ring, just 51% have come to the same conclusion about Trump.

A combined 48% of respondents are either extremely or somewhat confident that Trump has the mental capacity to be an effective president. A combined 29% feel the same way about Biden.

The finding of the AP/NORC survey comes on the heels of another tough poll for the president that suggested that he performs worse against Trump than other potential Democratic nominees in the battleground states of Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia.

According to Politico ‘s write-up of that survey, which was conducted by BlueLabs Analytics,  “Alternative Democratic candidates run ahead of President Biden by an average of three points across the battleground states. Nearly every tested Democrat performs better than the President. This includes Vice President [KAMALA] HARRIS who runs better than the President (but behind the average alternative).”

The strongest candidates, according to the BlueLabs Analytics poll were Arizona Senator Mark Kelly , Maryland Governor Wes Moore , Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro , and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer , all of whom outperformed Biden by five points.

“Voters are looking for a fresh face,” concluded a memo accompanying the topline results. “Those more closely tied to the current administration perform relatively worse than other tested candidates.”