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4 months ago
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It is nearly impossible for President Joe Biden to win the 2024 election without carrying a majority of independent voters and he has now lost them, perhaps, irretrievably.
That’s the finding of an exclusive DailyMail.com poll of politically-unaligned voters, who watched the first presidential debate on Thursday night.
However, this survey of independent-minded Americans also held a hidden glimmer of hope for Democrats left despondent by their frontrunner’s shockingly feeble performance.
For if President Biden were to quit the race - as prominent Dems and influential left-leaning media commentators are urging him to do – and allow his party to unite around an alternative candidate, there remains an opportunity to defeat Trump in a general election.
President Biden's disastrous debate performance may have irretrievably damaged his support among independent voters, a DailyMail.com poll found
Make no mistake, as previous DailyMail.com polling has shown, voters hold dismal views of the aging President.
Ahead of the debate, 48 percent of independents voters said they held an unfavorable opinion of Biden (41 percent said the same of Trump).
But Biden’s halting debate performance, which failed to meet even the lowest of expectations, cemented the perception that he is just too old for the job.
‘I was concerned for him,’ Miguel, a 23-year-old hispanic voter from Missouri, who does not consider himself a Republican or Democrat, told the Mail.
Miguel was not alone.
‘Sad,’ ‘scared,’ ‘confused,’ ‘worried,’ and ‘uneasy’ were the most common reactions among these voters to Biden’s debate performance. Though while these Americans expressed sympathy for the 81-year-old grandfather, they do not believe that he should be in the race.
Fifty-five percent of independents said Biden ‘should no longer be the Democratic nominee.’
It’s true that then-Senator Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election and defeated Republican John McCain without carrying the independent vote. But Obama benefited from historic turnout among black voters.
Biden will not enjoy that same level of support from minorities.
The desire for Biden to dropout was shared by 49 percent of black independents and 57 percent of hispanic independents.
Strikingly, four in 10 independents who voted for Biden in 2020 agreed that the party must move on without him.
They may be on to something.
Despite many analysts and pundits feeling Trump won Thursday's debate with energy and vigor, DailyMail.com's poll found he did not win over a significant percentage of new voters
Hidden inside this survey is a glimmer of hope for left-leaning Americans terrified at the prospect of another Trump presidency.
The Mail's poll suggests that Trump did not win over a significant percentage of new voters, despite carrying the night.
Before the debate, 48 percent of independents had a favorable view of Trump. After the face-off that metric only increased a few percentage points to 51 percent - a statistically insignificant number within the poll’s margin of error - even though six in 10 voters believed Trump performed ‘best in the debate.’
Furthermore, in terms of how Trump was perceived, it was a mixed bag.
He was seen as the most physically strong, presidential, and mentally astute – but also as the most patronizing, annoying, and rude (Biden was seen as the most boring).
Trump won because Biden lost so badly. The former real estate mogul did not reinvite himself. Trump remains the most unpopular major party politician in the country - behind Biden.
The clear takeaway from these results is that there is an opportunity for Democrats, if they can swap out their candidate.
One in every eight independent voter in our survey said they plan on voting for Robert F Kennedy Jr in November. While it’s extremely unlikely that the Democratic establishment will rally behind him - there is a clear desire among independents to hear what he has to say.
Fifty-five percent of independents believe RFK Jr should have had a place on the CNN debate stage. That includes nearly six in 10 individuals who backed Biden in 2020.
Over half of independent voters believe RFK Jr. should have been included in the CNN debate
Vice President Kamala Harris has been frequently floated as a potential Biden successor, however she has struggled with poor polling among the American electorate
And what of the other Democrats so often mentioned as potential Biden substitutes?
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, and California Governor Gavin Newsom are not well-known by the American public – making polling on their electoral prospects unreliable. But their relative anonymity could prove to be an asset.
They would present to voters as a blank slate without the tremendous baggage of more familiar politicians, like Vice President Kamala Harris.
Past surveys have made one thing perfectly: Harris is unlikely to perform much better than Biden against Trump.
She was recently named in a September 2023 Mail poll of all voters as the least popular vice president in history.
The words most commonly used to describe her were 'incompetent,' and 'idiot.'
A quarter of Democrats, one in four black voters and a majority of 18 to 29-year-olds said that they preferred Biden replace her as his running mate.
There is no doubt that the way forward for Democrats is muddy.
While independents were moved by Thursday night’s debate away from Biden – they did not gravitate toward Trump in any significant way.
There is a way forward for Democrats.
It does not involve President Biden or Vice President Harris.
English (US)