President Biden has made clear that, at this point, he has no intention of removing his name from contention for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination this year. In an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday, Biden insisted that he was the party’s nominee, which, barring a revolt at his party’s convention in August or a change of heart on his part, he will be. The president challenged other Democrats to launch an effort to supplant him at the top of the ticket; it is unlikely that any will.
It’s unlikely in part for the same reason no major contender emerged to challenge him in the primaries: No one wants to be the person who can be blamed for weakening the party before a general election matchup against Trump. But it’s also unlikely because there is not a massive groundswell of demand within the party’s base for a non-Biden candidate.
New polling from YouGov finds that more Democrats think Biden should step aside than think he shouldn’t. But neither position has a majority. A quarter of Democrats (and Democratic-leaning independents, but we’ll just say “Democrats” in this article for the sake of brevity) think Biden should definitely stand down; a quarter think he definitely shouldn’t.
Most Democrats, though, think he won’t. More than 7 in 10 think it’s not likely Biden will opt to withdraw. Fewer than 2 in 10 think he will.
YouGov also assessed how Democrats viewed possible replacements for Biden. Almost across the board, more Democrats viewed potential replacements as less likely than Biden to beat Trump in November. The sole exception was Michelle Obama, someone who has never indicated any interest in seeking elective office.
Most of those polled had relatively low familiarity among Democrats. The non-Michelle Obama candidate who had the strongest combination of net favorability and perceived ability to beat Trump? Vice President Harris.
While Harris fares better than other possible replacements (as she did in CNN’s recent poll), Democrats still prefer Biden. Asked which candidate they’d rather see as the party’s nominee, Biden has a 15-point point advantage among Democrats. Asked who they think has a better chance against Trump, that advantage extends to 23 points.
Harris is seen as having advantages that Biden lacks, including competence, communication skills and mental fitness. But Biden is viewed by Democrats as more authentic and likable.
It’s important to note a gender gap here. Men are 18 points more likely than women to say that “likable” better describes Biden. They are 14 points more likely to think that Biden has a better chance than Harris against Trump.
Should the party seek to replace Biden, Democrats don’t have strong feelings about how best that should be accomplished. Between 58 and 67 percent of Democrats expressed comfort with a range of possible mechanisms, from an open convention to choosing a candidate based on polling. The least-popular option was Biden tapping a replacement, but even that was viewed positively by half of Democrats.
At this point, the odds appear to be against any of these options happening anyway. Democrats, like Biden himself, seem to think that the sitting president will be the party’s nominee in November. And, unless Michelle Obama suddenly gets a taste for elective office, they seem resigned to having that happen.
Source link : https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/07/09/biden-replacement-democrats-polling/
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Publish date : 2024-07-09 17:04:40
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