Joe Biden has been under extra scrutiny after his lackluster performance in the debate against Donald Trump, where he stumbled over his words and looked tired.
An effort he himself explained by the fact that he traveled a lot and did not take enough time to recover.
Since then, a number of top Democrats have gone public and called on Biden to step aside, which he has said he will not do.
Low confidence
Two weeks after the weak effort in the debate, the AP news agency and the independent social research organization NORC come out with a new opinion poll that is hardly pleasant reading for the president.
According to the poll, nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of Democrats polled think it’s time for him to step aside.
Furthermore, the survey – conducted between July 11-15 and involving 1,253 respondents – shows that only three out of ten Democrats are completely convinced that Biden has the mental capacity to continue as president.
In the previous survey conducted in February, that figure was four out of ten.
Seven out of ten Americans think Biden should withdraw. The same number for Trump is six, with the difference that Trump has strong confidence among his own voters.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ numbers are said to be roughly on par with Biden’s.
“Hard to overlook the consequences”
Merrick Tabor is a political scientist at Stockholm University:
– What is a bit difficult to interpret in this is that even if a fairly large majority of the Democrats would like another candidate, the question is how they would vote if it is still Biden. It is not a given that they vote for Trump just because they want the Democrats to have another candidate, he tells TV4 Nyheterna.
– It is difficult to overlook the consequences if he were not to continue. How messy would it be to produce another candidate and redo the election campaign? It is complicated although many would like another.
He still believes that the Democrats will eventually rally behind Biden.
– There is very little the party can do if he wants to continue and if it turns out that he stays and you don’t get him to resign, you will probably end up behind him after all.