Age is just a number. Nathan Howard/Getty Images
Is Joe Biden, at the age of 81, too old for the job? A recent NBC poll found that 62% of voters have “major concerns” about his fitness for office. And earlier this month, a report by Special Counsel Robert Hur claimed that Biden’s “memory was significantly limited”.
Biden hit back furiously. But even then managed to slip up, mixing up the presidents of Mexico and Egypt. Though Donald Trump often makes similar mistakes, his vigour on the campaign trail contrasts greatly with Biden’s. He just looks so much more energetic, and in politics appearances are everything. Ronald Reagan, who, at the age of 73, was the oldest American ever to be nominated by a major party for president, suffered under the harsh lights during his first debate against Walter Mondale in 1984. Before his second, more successful performance, he made sure to fix the lighting. But looks aside, Democrat complaints about Trump’s threat to democracy have, ironically, only emphasised the Republican leader’s vitality.
How will these concerns about Biden’s age shape the course of the election? In a new Focaldata-UnHerd poll of more than 700 people in six swing states — Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada — we asked what people thought about the issue. The results were unexpected.
We found that Americans are far more concerned about Biden’s age than Trump’s. Half of respondents (49%) say they are “very concerned” about Biden, almost twice as many as for Trump (26%). Meanwhile, 38% of respondents are not concerned at all about Trump’s age — compared with just 14% for Biden.
It’s not just Republicans who are concerned about Biden’s frailty — Democrats are too. You can see below the results broken down by how Americans voted in 2020. As one would expect, Republican voters are most worried about Biden’s age, and almost half of those who did not vote for either party are “very concerned”. Morale is also low among Democrats: nearly three-quarters (74%) of those who voted for Biden now have concerns about his age, and one quarter (24%) are very concerned about him.
This could create a problem for the Democrats, who are gearing up to fight a close defensive election. Biden is defending leads of under one percent in several states — and in these swing states, every point counts. He needs as many of his 2020 supporters as possible to back him again. That 24% of those who voted for Biden last time are now “very concerned” about his age is a bad omen for his campaign.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeBottom line: for 4 years under Trump, we had a world at peace, a rapidly growing economy, and secure borders. Whereas: for 4 years under Biden, we have a world at war, a stuttering economy, and borders in name only. Ask yourself: “Am I better off now than I was four years ago?”
Just make sure to ask yourself that question with a bit more context and some objectivity.
Russia decided to invade Ukraine based on spurious territorial claims and ahistorical beliefs, which it still would have done under a Trump administration (but without any push back)Israel has invaded the Gaza Strip after its territory was subject to a significant terrorist attack, its actions strongly supported by Donald TrumpThe US economy has grown faster over the past three years, with stronger employment and wages growth than during the Trump years, and inflation is now reducing
Surely Samuel’s point is that Russia could have invaded Ukraine and the Gazans could have committed an hideous terrorist attack in Israel at any point during Trump’s presidency. It isn’t like the “territorial claims and ahistorical beliefs” are products of the last four years. They didn’t and it is reasonable to believe that this was because they were worried about Trump’s response.
Reality tells you, dear poster, that Putin did not invade Ukraine, Hamas did not invade Israel and Kim stopped firing rockets.
Your last sentence is not supported by the facts.
Trump famously said he wouldn’t get involved in any war, so Russia and Hamas wouldn’t care one way or another. This is especially true for Russia, as Trump thinks he’s a truly great leader (ask Navalny about that). Israel is a strong ally, but Trump wouldn’t step in to help them. He doesn’t like any of our allies in NATO, and says as far as he’s concerned Russia is free to invade Europe. So, the fact is, Trump wouldn’t even negotiate for peace. His time will be used to get revenge on his enemies. He said so.
Your argument is false: the Russians spent a long time building up the invasion force, and started during Trump’s presidency. Everything Trump did reassured them that there would be no objection from across the Atlantic. Anyway, it’s entirely irrelevant – Putin was convinced they would be hailed as liberators. What the US thought about it didn’t enter his head.
Can you at least acknowledge that any economy would tend to grow atypically after being shut down for a virus and injected with $5 trillion of funny money?
You are so far off reality with context and objectivity completely missing in your post. The economy is sputtering at best, the debt now is insurmountable as far as the eye can see, and tech and other industries are laying off workers left and right. Neither the Ukraine war nor the Hamas attack would have happened under Trump. Putin acted because he saw the weakness of the Biden administration, just as he saw and acted under Obama. And Biden’s controllers once again enabled Iran to mobilize Hamas and Hezbollah by, for some insane reason no one explains, giving them billions in dollars to set the Middle East on fire. Just as they did under Obama. By the way have you never heard of the Abraham Accords?
The Abraham Accords are exactly the point. Trump tried to completely sideline Palestine and further entrench Israel. What Trump calls “defeating ISIS” is actually giving Syria to Russia.
seems you’re in absolutely no place to talk about objectivity.
It would appear that neither are you.
You cannot even complete your name in the Unherd Profile.
For God’s sake, Trump raised the debt higher than any president in history. That’s what happens when you lower taxes for corporations and the ultra rich. Jeff Bezos claimed an income of $87,000, same as me. Amazon, Apple, Microsoft et. al paid no taxes. Their tax cuts are permanent, whereas the tax cuts for the great unwashed went up five years after the cuts.
Kimberly
Did you write this today or in 2020
Could have; Would have; but the reality is they didn’t !
I’m no Trump fan nor MAGA-American BUT: Trump was the first US President to point out how China, enabled by globalists, was screwing the American people; he was first to state forcefully that NATO was taking a free ride courtesy of US taxpayers; and, while Trump has no filter on his mouth, some Americans out of desperation for something other than the endless dissimulation from the mouths their pusillanimous “leaders”, take pleasure in a politician who actually says what he thinks. Every American President back to Clinton has done nothing but lie to the people. And yes, Trump, also has honesty issues but not about what he thinks politically.
Well said. I’d rather elect an honest man like Trump, who says exactly what he thinks, than a guy like Biden, beholden to the globalists and woke crowd, who speaks pretty words and lets the world go up in flames.
It’s not a question of age, it’s a question of competence. Could you trust Biden with your personal finances? To drive you to the airport on time? To make you an omelette?
Does this guy even get involved in any of the decision making, or does he just sign whatever is put in front of him and read from an autocue?
My thoughts entirely. Making the main thrust of the questions about age is to soften the criticism about mental ability. While ‘age’ might be a general proxy for ability in a general demographic the proxy argument shouldn’t apply to a single individual who controls the nuclear launch codes.
Is the poll a victim of its methodology, or is it (gasp) biased?
I don’t disagree that competence is key – but at the same time I don’t think the President of the USA needs to be a particularly competent IFA, taxi driver or chef to do the job. Forgive me but I think you might have focussed on some more relevant skills and attributes than those.
Not really. Take any other world leader and I’d be reasonably confident they could undertake general living skills as a measure of mental stability – if it’s not possible to trust him with simple things how can he do a highly complex job?
I’m just amazed that anyone thinks he is capable of this roll.
It’s also true that “able to find his way off a stage” and “able to walk up stairs” are also irrelevant to doing the President’s job. But one does look for him to be able to do these things. And to at least show signs of mental resilience.
They should put him in a wheelchair; then he could always have someone guiding him around. It would look better.
Trump got lost in the Oval Office; he tried to leave through the wrong door. It’s on tape.
It’s pretty clear a memo went out from the DNC to make Trump’s age an issue to bleed off some of the heat about Joe’s. It’s not gonna work. Trump entertains stadium crowds of tens of thousand for an hour or more while Biden has trouble walking jerkily onto the stage and forgetting how he got there when he’s finished his incoherent remarks.
Totally different, my dear. Biden in non compos mentis.
True. I mean, anyone should be able to control of nucear weapons! Right?
I think the nuclear weapons threat is a busted flush now. No one’s scared anymore. Partly because it’s increasingly.clear to them and to us that long drawn out,even endless conflict makes SO MUCH MONEY for them,all sides,why kill the golden goose. Of course it’s there and it’s real.but if it happens it happens,no one’s going to ask my permission. Do CND even exist now. Could there be another Greenham Common style camp.
Try it for a day, my friend. For instance what would you have done about the Nalvalny death?
For the few Democrat supporters here, when you vote Democrat now – today’s party – what actually improves in people’s lives? The government spends a lot of money, but is it seen on the ground? Are the cities cleaner, highways better, does health improve, are people better educated?
In a Bill Clinton past, wages would rise, more people would own homes, schools would see investment and better performance, life expectancy, quality of life and purchasing power would feel like they’d improved.
Now it just feels like Democrats want power unilaterally – no dissent allowed – but actually don’t have a plan, other than being in charge for their own personal benefit, or just to stop the other guy having it.
For all the claims of a better economy, polls show voters don’t think that’s the case in reality. And war and foreign policy are a mess. Illegal immigration is impacting public services and low paid jobs. Climate regulations are reducing choice and increasing costs. Money seems to be flowing straight into large corporations and out overseas, with politicians skimming off the top via what looks like legal insider trading or complex PAC funds.
So for the Democrat supporters here, are you just voting anti-Trump (boo hiss – baddie), or is there a positive set of policies you’re getting that you expect to improve your lives?
It’s obvious that Democrats are very bad for their voters, and anyone else living under their mismanagement, incompetence, and malevolence. Every miserable toilet of a city is run by Democrats.
The only people to whom it is not obvious is their inexplicable voters.
I think it is the modern day version of bread and circuses. The reality is that a significant part of any population is dependent on government expenditure for employment. As there is no competition standards can drop without any consequence for employee and as they cannot get a in the private sector because they are not good enough; there is no incentive to improve. There are exceptions such as highly experienced special forces personnel; a few top academic engineers at places such as MIT; the brilliant classicist who could hav entered The Law, who can leave for better paid jobs in the private sector but the figures are fractions of one percent of employees.
By the time one is in one’s mid thirties, it is very difficult to retrain and find better paid employment.
Come on, man!
All that aside, and I do agree with it, I am increasingly convinced that our institutions, particularly our legal and intelligence communities need a purge.
The lawfare against Trump is more than a bit frightening. The lawsuit for fraud in NY in particular is concerning. The governor did all but flat out admit that they prosecuted Trump for that only because he is Trump and the likely republican nominee. She did that when she stood up in front of all those real estate developers and told them not to worry, that this case is basically a one off. It was flat out a political move.
But, as we learn more about the actions of the intelligence community and the FBI as it pertains to the Russia Collusion hoax, again, it looks like they actively worked to influence the election which is itself illegal and was done with illegal methods.
Regardless, the only chance of these places getting a good purge is if Trump is elected.
Trump is not a cure for the current evils, either. His style is very chaotic and he can hardly come up with systemic solutions. Look at his first term. He can perform well by taking spontaneous solutions. But purging DC deep state would be a very slow and painful process. He just doesn’t have systemic thinking and perseverance to do that. The best he can do is fire a few bureaucrats in rage and replace them with similar ones. And send a blurb to X…
IMO, the best he can do is hire Vivek as his Veep and turn him loose on the Deep State ala Javier Milei.
The big question is ‘Is he causing the Chaos’ and you and I both know the answer to that and it is NO.
What is ignored is that these organisations have become far too large and are employing third rate people. If one Looks at Britain up to 1939, MI5 and Special Branch who were responsible for internal security were very small but had very high quality people.
Vernon Kell – Wikipedia
Vernon Kell was an army officer who could speak German, Italian, French, Italian, Polish, Russian and Chinese .
Having large numbers of people who have a slight knowledge of what is happening is not as effective as having a few people who do know. As the number of inadequate people increase in an organisation, they try to justify their employment which results in political intrigues. Very rapidly more time and energy is spent on internal politics than combatting the threat to the country.
Very poor explanation of the data and graphs used in this article. Almost impossible for anyone not already an expert in these techniques to know with any certainty what they are saying and how reliable they are. This feels like a situation where less data and technical complexity and better communication of what it all means would be helpful.
There is also an underlying assumption here that everything is all reducible to quantifiable data (what we might call the “quant” view of the world where it’s assumed that a predictive model has all the answers). Then we see – for example – the fourth diagram where the “model accuracy” is quoted as “88%”. What exactly does that mean ?
But in any case, I don’t believe in this strictly “quant” view of the world. There are other, human effects. If a general view sets in that Biden isn’t fully mentally capable, I suspect that’s far more compelling than any cost of living stuff (which is largely outside of the hands of the President in any case).
What I find absolutely astonishing is that the Democrats have no Plan B for such an obvious risk.
What I find absolutely astonishing is that the Democrats have no Plan B for such an obvious risk. — They still have plan-A, the one we saw in 2020. Does any sane person really believe that more people voted for Joe Biden than any candidate in history? Plan-B is the use of specious prosecutions against their opponent, a less violent way of dispatching the opposition, though don’t rule out something messier than lawfare.
Yes. Actually I do. Biden won in 2020 fair and square. The electorate was bigger than ever and the turnout higher than 2016, so no surprise if it was a record vote. John Major got a record vote count in 1992. Didn’t mean he was hugely popular.
Biden will likely lose this time (if he makes it to the election), but may well still win the popular vote, just as Hillary Clinton did in 2016. But foolish to make predictions this far out anyway.
I just don’t buy these conspiracy theories about vote rigging. There might be a few irregularities (as here in the UK with postal voting), but not enough to make a major difference. Trump lost by some margin in 2020. Remember also that the Republicans have been much better at redestricting so they can win with fewer votes than the Democrats. Neither side is whiter than white.
and who said you were sane Pete B
Nobody, absolutely nobody, denies thate vote rigging that occurred; it is just the Dems say it was all legal because of COVID, even though no state laws were ever passed to make it legal. Your call?
A sane person might think Biden’s performance would be more of an issue than his age. Who in America signed up for open borders, rampant crime, new wars, ongoing inflation, even more spending, govt-sanctioned censorship, etc.? Yet, there are millions who will vote for more of the same, all because of an irrational hatred toward Orange McBadman.
I can understand how Trump might be off-putting to some people. I cannot understand how anyone would voluntarily sign up for more of the same. It takes cutting off one’s nose to new depths. And any analysis that considers Gavin Newsom – who ruined San Francisco and California – as a viable alternative, highlights a bankruptcy of values within a once-noble party.
He’s obviously not competent, but the Democrats have the backing of the media who spin stories that low information voters believer and Democrats accept for the greater good.
Loads of Dems accept that Biden isn’t a great option. They just know he’s better than the alternative in the running for President.
And they base their “better than” conclusion on what exactly? Geopolitical stability, border security, incidence of homelessness, inflation, containment of Iranian terror efforts? Or is it just the relative subsidence of their anti-Trump mania?
Do not expect an answer/reply.
we all know, it is nothing to do with age. He is suffering from dementia and he is not running the administration. The President is primarily a decision maker (or should be). I do not think dear old Joe could make a decision if his life depended on it.
full stop.
He did decide to hold a press conference to tell us he was on the ball – and then proved he wasn’t ! The risk is more bad decisions than no decisions.
Where’s my friend, Champagne Socialist?
Eh. It’s 7:30 AM in British Columbia; he is probably just rising.
With a hangover from the plonk.
No hangovers from the good stuff, Jerry!
Not that I imagine you would know much about that….
Pretty dull around here without me, isn’t it?
I was missing the pleasant quiet. Your kind of talk isn’t really missed much, sorry to say.
I understand. You guys don’t really do wit or facts.
After 3+ years of Bidenomics, the US’s overall inflation rate is 18%, food is up 20.8%, shelter is up 19.5%, and energy is up 32.3% (source: Bureau of Labor statistics). So, the Biden economy is fine unless you want to eat, travel, or live indoors.
Funny, according to the U.S. Department of Labor data published on Feb. 13, 2024, the annual inflation rate for the 12 months ending in January is 3.1%. Our rate is the ninth lowest in the world.
Don’t confuse them with facts!
Its the economy, stupid.
Biden has rescued America from the depression that Trump created. He will beat Trump in another landslide.
Ha ha ha ha ha,course he will. By eleventy million.
The abortion question will also doom Trump. The religious zealots that he appointed the Supreme Court stripping women’s healthcare rights away from them will not be forgotten.
Of course, Trump has likely paid for hundreds of abortions but that doesn’t seem to worry the cult members who still support him.
Us whores have rights too.
It is a mistake to assess/predict an American election based upon polls that query Democrats vs Republicans. Of Massachusetts voters, for example, as of late 2023 29% registered as Democrats, 9% as Republican, and 61% as Independent. Of those three categories the only group to increase since 2018 were Independents. The number registered as Democrat or Republican went down.
The real story in American politics is the utter disgust of American voters with the two parties.
It won’t be concerns over his age and the increasing state media allowing us to see that, but his port handling of the economy. DC elites should go shopping for themselves instead of “ the help” doing it for them and see.
The world thinks he is a senile old crook that like sniffing children who failed badly in Afghanistan and is partially responsible for a horrible war in Ukraine that no one cares about and doesn’t want to fund. … so you’re right … it’s only partially about his age.
It won’t matter how many vote or for who. They’ll just make it up. He won,they’ll proclaim,by eleventy million votes,and when people say show us the proof,theyll go,oops,the computer deleted the program. Sorry folks. You’ll have to take our word for it.
Life imitates art and history repeats itself.
But in this case, the art in question is a farce (specifically, Weekend at Bernies) and the election is its long-awaited reboot as a grand tragedy.
If the entire force of western media insists upon framing this election as Trump vs “Not Trump” (which it is) then it doesn’t matter if Biden is old (certainly), senile (better than 50:50) or, indeed, a dead millionaire being carted around by a couple of 80s comedy jerks (watch this space). If he’s the choice then Not Trumpers are going to have to stick their x in the Not Trump box
But, if anything happens which dents the Trump/Not Trump framing – like, say, people feeling poorer than ever whilst being told that the economy is better than ever – then a bunch of people may stay home or switch.
As to the public not being entirely sure who might replace Biden in the event that he were to stand aside (or die). Well, of course they aren’t – the media actively suppresses coverage of other candidates running on the Dem or leftish side. By way of example, this very article cites, as alternatives, Gavin Newsom (not running) and Gretchen Whitmer (also not running) but not Dean Phillips, Marianne Williamson and RFK Jnr, about whom you may think what you like but who surely deserve at least a passing mention in this context by virtue of the fact that they are actually standing as candidates. No mention either of Kamala Harris – about whom you may also think what you like but who is, of course, constitutionally, a heartbeat away form the Oval Office.
My guess is that Biden struggles on the the convention where he picks a running mate who isn’t quite as unpopular as Harris. That is procedurally much easier than replacing Biden himself. Then, at a strategically, convenient moment between the convention and the election, Biden bows out on doctor’s orders in favour of his new official running mate. The running mate then dumps some baggage (maybe by then Israel will feel like it has done what it needs to in Gaza and the new guy can take credit for a ceasefire) and off we go.