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Published One Leaked memo President Joe Biden’s performance in last week’s debate may have been the final nail in his political coffin, according to a report released Tuesday by Open Labs, a left-leaning research organization that polls a range of Democratic groups.
A poll conducted within 72 hours of the debate found that 40% of respondents who voted for Biden in 2020 believe the Democratic incumbent should stop campaigning, while 45% suggested he should continue. A poll just two months ago found that only 25% of Biden’s 2020 supporters want him to step down, while 62% want him to continue campaigning.
Swinging voters also indicated they felt Biden was finished, suggesting by a two-to-one margin that he should stop campaigning.
Open Labs said Biden’s drop in the popular vote share against former President Donald Trump in the 72 hours following the debate was “the largest one-week drop since tracking of the horse race began in late 2021.” This is particularly bad news for Biden, as his popular vote share was already four percentage points lower than the share he won in 2020, and by eight percentage points.
“The drop in approval ratings reflects already heightened concerns about the president’s age and growing divisions within the Democratic Party over who should stand as a presidential nominee,” the memo said.
The research group found that 69% of voters are very or somewhat concerned that Biden’s age will affect his job as president, up 8 percentage points from a pre-debate poll, as are 45% of Biden supporters in 2020, 68% of swing voters in 2016 and 2020, and 92% of Trump supporters in 2020.
“Trump is now on track to win states that were not considered battlegrounds last week.”
A closer look at key electoral college states paints an even more dire picture for Biden.
In multicandidate polls, Biden has closed the gap by about 2 percentage points in all battleground states, with Trump now leading Biden by more than 7 percentage points in Pennsylvania, for example. Before the debate, Trump led by just 5 percentage points. Trump leads Biden by 2.8 percentage points in New Hampshire, 4.2 percentage points in Wisconsin, 6.9 percentage points in Michigan, 8.8 percentage points in Nevada, 9.7 percentage points in Arizona, 10.1 percentage points in Georgia, and 10.6 percentage points in North Carolina.
Polls also suggest that Trump has gained half-point leads in New Mexico and Virginia, while Biden’s pre-debate leads in Colorado and Maine have also narrowed significantly, to roughly 2 percentage points in both states.
PAC’s Peter Hamby, who said he received the OpenLab memo from an anonymous Democrat, wrote, “What’s most worrying about this is that Trump is now within striking distance of a range of states that weren’t considered battlegrounds last week.”
Biden is losing not only the support of voters but also their favorability.
OpenLab provided a line graph showing the percentage of respondents who answered “more favorable” to the question, “After what you’ve heard about Joe Biden in the past week, do you think your opinion of Joe Biden has become more favorable, less favorable, or no difference?”
The “more favorable” line has mostly trended downward since Biden’s failed attempt to withdraw troops from Afghanistan, but last week it plummeted to an all-time low of 27%.
“Similarly large tracking declines were seen during the Afghanistan withdrawal and classified documents incidents, but this is the lowest for this metric since tracking began in 2021,” OpenLab said.
Some online have suggested the OpenLab memo is a strategic attempt to stoke Republican complacency and suppress the vote. But if it’s rooted in reality and Biden ultimately follows his family’s lead,
recommendation If he intends to continue the campaign, he may end up winning the election in a landslide.
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