Potential Democrat voters in the 2024 presidential election are being faced with a particularly tough choice, according to the latest polling courtesy of ABC. More than six in ten responders (63%) don’t believe that President Joe Biden “has the mental sharpness it takes to serve effectively as president.” But with Biden being the only show in town for the political left, how can the troubled commander-in-chief make the numbers work? And what mental gymnastics will it take for Democrats to pull the lever for someone they deem mentally unfit for office?
Digging Into the Data
The poll — conducted by ABC News in conjunction with a prominent Washington, DC, newspaper –sampled 1,000 people, 900 of whom were registered voters. One often expects with left-leaning outlets that the demographic split between left- and right-wing voters is skewed; however, this survey had an almost equal division.
Notably, when the respondents were asked whether they thought former President Donald Trump possessed the mental acuity for the job, 54% said yes. The same question also was asked of the two presidents’ physical fitness for the job. Biden received a concerning 33% against Trump’s 64% — almost double the sitting president.
Of the Democrat cohort, 21% believe that Biden is not mentally capable of remaining in charge, a sentiment felt by 69% of the all-important independent voters. It is these two groups that will ultimately decide who wins in 2024, and it is with them that the conundrum becomes apparent.
Biden Offers No Easy Answers
The survey indicates that just 36% of all respondees approve of Biden’s performance (54% for Trump’s time in office). That leaves an almost 20% gap in support that the current president has to bridge, but it appears likely that those who don’t regard his performance as positive and those who don’t believe he has the cognitive fortitude to carry out the job are the same subsections. So what is a Democrat to do?
It has become apparent that American politics may be beyond the point of reconciliation; each side of the aisle appears willing to vote for its party’s candidate. Which begs the question: Will Democrat voters who think Biden is not mentally fit for office vote for him anyway?
The electoral math suggests that without this fifth of normally reliable voters, Biden has no path to victory.
Joe Biden (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)
Reflect for a moment on the deluge of anti-Trump stories that appear on the news networks and front pages of the nation’s press. It seems that the Fourth Estate is all too aware that it is asking Biden voters to take the hit and cast their ballots for a candidate they deem incapable. After all – so the refrain goes – a second term with Trump at the helm is the worst possible outcome. This cohort may, in fact, believe the cri de coeur of the activist media and take their medicine. Or there is another, more worrying, potentiality.
What if this roughly 20% of Democrat-leaning voters opt for Biden because they don’t believe he is – or will be – truly the person pulling the strings? The president has demonstrated time and time again that he is on a short leash. Whether that’s getting questions in advance from supposedly reputable news outlets and cheat sheets with the questions provided to him in advance. Or perhaps it is his own statements that he is “only allowed” to take one question. His actions suggest that he is not the man in control of his own presidency. Maybe this is a price some voters are willing to pay to keep Trump from getting back into the Oval Office.
Case in point, consider newly-elected Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania. After suffering a tragic stroke early in the campaign, it became increasingly obvious that he did not have the cognitive ability to be an effective senator. Voters ignored the obvious warning signs and elected him anyway. Shortly after he took his oath, he proved that his issues were not – as was boldly stated by the media – negligible. Are Democrats willing to turn a blind eye to the equally apparent issues of Joe Biden and expect a different result?
A Matter of Conscience
Seventeenth-century Jesuit scholar Baltasar Gracian once warned, “Never open the door to a lesser evil, for other and greater ones invariably slink in after it.” Voters have a difficult choice ahead of them. Do they accept that the sitting president is merely a figurehead? Do they vote for a candidate they say is neither mentally nor physically capable of carrying out his duties? Or do they take what they perceive as a risk by letting 45 become 47? Whatever their ultimate choice, it is a question of conscience that will reverberate long after the votes are counted, and the dust has settled.
