About half of Democratic voters think Joe Biden would not serve out his term as president if elected, according to a new poll.
The poll: The survey, released Monday by Rasmussen Reports, found 59% of voters believe it’s “likely” that Biden’s vice president would have to step in to replace him prematurely.
- That included 49% of Democrats and 73% of Republicans.
- Only 14% of all those surveyed ruled out the possibility that the presumptive Democratic nominee would fail to make it four years in office.
“Hiding” Biden: Many on the right, and some on the left, have raised concerns about the 77-year-old former vice president’s mental fitness for office, citing his gaffe-prone and garbled public appearances.
- President Donald Trump’s campaign has called Biden “diminished” and accused him of “hiding” in his Delaware basement-cum-“coronavirus bunker.”
- Conservative commentators have joined in the speculation, which the candidate has dismissed as baseless.
Meanwhile, left-leaning journalists have often downplayed questions about Biden’s psychological state.
- “This is Joe Biden out there on a vigorous bike ride. Not wearing a helmet but definitely wearing a mask, by the way… Fox’s narrative and talk radio’s narrative has been that Joe Biden is falling apart… and there he is riding a bike,” CNN host Brian Stelter during a weekend segment of his “Reliable Sources” program.
Last week, Biden chastised a reporter for asking if he’d taken a cognitive test.
- “No, I haven’t taken a test. Why the hell would I take a test? Come on, man,” Biden told CBS correspondent Errol Barnett. “That’s like saying to you, before you got on this program if you had taken a test were you taking cocaine or not. What do you think, huh? Are you a junkie?”
The candidate is expected to name his running mate this week, ahead of the start of the Democratic National Convention on Monday.
