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Why Biden's decline matters to Democrats' future [1]
['Daily Kos Staff']
Date: 2025-06-01
Survey Says is a weekly column rounding up the most important polling trends or data points you need to know about. You’ll also find data-based updates on past Daily Kos reporting, plus a vibe check on a trend that’s driving politics.
“They are wrong. There is nothing to sustain that.”
That’s what former President Joe Biden said during an appearance on “The View” in early May, denying widespread reports that he suffered stark cognitive decline during his final years in office. But Americans just aren’t buying it.
New data from YouGov finds that Americans believe not only that Biden’s health and age limited his ability to carry out presidential duties but also that Democrats concealed his health information from the public. And these issues cut to the heart of a current problem facing the Democratic Party: How can it regain credibility with voters—including many Democrats—who just don’t trust the party right now?
Just 6% of Americans think Biden’s age and health had no effect whatsoever on his ability to carry out presidential duties, according to a new poll YouGov conducted for The Economist. Eighty-six percent of Americans think his ability to be president was at least somewhat limited by his age and health, including 58% who think he was “severely limited” by it.
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“The Democratic Party at large didn’t buy into it,” Biden also claimed on “The View,” pointing to his victory in the 2024 Democratic presidential primaries, which were essentially uncontested.
But even before his disastrous June 2024 debate with Donald Trump, which culminated with the sitting president exiting the presidential race, Biden’s age and health worried Democrats.
In a February 2024 poll from YouGov, only 21% of Democrats said his health and age would not limit his ability to carry out presidential duties. A higher share (24%) said he would be “severely limited.” And in a New York Times/Siena College poll fielded that same month, 56% of Democrats and 59% of voters who backed Biden in the 2020 election said Biden was too old to be an effective president.
Other polls from before the debate show similar numbers. In fact, in a YouGov poll from July 2022—two years before he dropped out of the 2024 race—only about 1 in 4 Democrats said Biden’s health and age had no effect on his ability to be president.
President Donald Trump
And the numbers have only gotten worse for Biden. The latest YouGov/Economist poll finds that only 12% of Democrats think his age and health had no effect at all on his ability to be president, and 1 in 3 Democrats think his health and age severely limited him.
The issue has always been there for Democrats. And beyond that, Democrats aren’t the only people who vote in elections. The vast majority of registered voters (73%) in February 2024 thought Biden was too old to be an effective president, according to the New York Times/Siena College poll.
Why does this matter when Trump, a conspicuously deranged man, is the sitting president? Let’s be clear: Trump’s age and cognitive health are absolutely the more important story right now. And Americans are worried about it. In another new YouGov poll, just 31% of Americans think Trump’s age and health have no impact at all on his ability to be president. Another 29% thinks those things “severely limit” him, and that includes a majority of Democrats (58%) and a plurality of independents (29%).
Still, the topic of Biden’s health and how Democrats handled it aren’t just issues of the past. They also threaten how the public views the Democratic Party at large.
Most Americans (57%) think that Democrats hid information about Biden’s health from the public while he was president, according to the latest YouGov/Economist poll. That includes not only 1 in 4 Democrats but also more than 1 in 2 independents.
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Of course, if there was a cover-up, it clearly wasn’t a very good one. Just look at those pre-debate polls.
Either way, a sizable portion of the voters the Democratic Party relies on to win elections just watched party officials spend years claiming that Biden was as sharp as ever and able to take on another presidential campaign, in the face of strong evidence otherwise, all while they themselves were worried about it. Is it really a surprise the party now faces such terrible favorability ratings?
Only 38% of Americans have a favorable view of the Democratic Party, while 60% have an unfavorable view, according to the Pew Research Center. That puts the party 22 percentage points underwater, compared with the Republican Party, which is 13 points underwater. However, more tellingly, just 75% of Democrats have a favorable view of their own party—the lowest share Pew has found in the past six years.
Talking through what happened with Biden—what the party ignored, what it got wrong—is a good way for Democrats to regain credibility in the eyes of voters, to let them know that they’re done covering their ears, and that they want to listen again.
Any updates?
The “big, beautiful” tax bill that House Republicans passed recently would gut food assistance for low-income Americans, and that’s got even some Republicans vocally pissed. But a new data model from Data for Progress finds just how unpopular it is: In every House district in the nation, less than 15% of voters support cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The Trump administration is narrowing access to COVID-19 boosters—so much for conservatives trying to claim the slogan “my body, my choice”—but a lot of Americans might not notice. Seventy percent of Americans haven’t gotten a COVID-19 vaccine in the past year, according to a new YouGov/Economist poll. And only 33% want to get a booster if one is approved this fall.
In late April, Canada’s Liberal Party won an electoral victory everyone had expected them to lose handily—that is, until Trump returned to the White House and promptly started attacking the nation. And Liberals’ pushback to Trump seems to have helped them: 68% of Canadians who voted in the election said Trump played a role in their vote, according to a newly released YouGov survey. Eleven percent said he was their top concern when voting, and another 21% said he was a major concern.
Vibe check
However much voters came to doubt Biden’s ability to carry out his presidential duties, they still gave him a much higher job approval rating than they currently give Trump.
According to Civiqs, 46% of registered voters approved and 48% disapproved of how Biden was handling his presidency as of May 29, 2021, making for a net approval rating of -2 percentage points. Meanwhile, on May 29 of this year, 43% approve and 54% disapprove of Trump—a net approval rating of -11.
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