Former President Barack Obama has been working overtime to sell Joe Biden to the American people.
All his hard work was undermined this week when former top adviser David Axelrod worked the Sunday morning media circuit expressing serious concern over polling numbers regarding Biden’s age.
In a recent Fox News poll, 76% of voters felt Biden was “too old” to serve another term.
By contrast, only 48% believe that Trump, who is only three years younger than Biden, is too old to run for president.
That is still not a great number, but the difference between these two on that front is very apparent to voters.
The message is still clear, however, that voters would prefer that we shuffle in the next generation of politicians and start to weed out the septuagenarians and octogenarians from office.
In the last two national polls, Morning Consult and Big Village, Joe Biden trails Donald Trump by 2% and 5%, respectively.
Last week, panic struck through the Democrat Party when polling revealed that Biden is now trailing Trump in five of the six key battleground states that Biden won in 2020.
Axelrod may not be a household name, but he carried a lot of weight in Democrat circles, and political junkies generally consider him one of the top Democrat voices.
He did not offer hopeful words in terms of Biden’s hopes for 2024, mainly due to the concerns he has about Joe Biden’s age.
Axelrod stated:
“The one number in the polling that was concerning, and in the CNN poll that followed after The New York Times poll, had to do with age, and that is one thing you can’t reverse no matter how effective Joe Biden is behind the scenes. In front of the camera, what he’s projecting is causing people concerns, which is worrisome.”
The subject of a third-party candidate also came up during the interview.
Axelrod also expressed concern about that, stating:
“I believe Joe Biden will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. And right now, we’re getting to the third-party point.
“My concern is that Donald Trump has a high floor and a low ceiling, and you throw a bunch of third-party candidates in there, and you are making it much more likely that he wins the election.”
The biggest problem that I see for Joe Biden is that he seems to live in a fantasy world in these polls. Last week, for instance, he told Fox News’ Peter Doocy that he is winning in the polls for battleground states, citing eight out of 10 polls that he is leading, only nobody knows what polls he is talking about.
Biden’s team has also not done much to help him on this front.
They are avoiding the age issue as well as the Hunter Biden issue, and that has a lot of people talking.
Regarding a third-party candidate, polling has shown that while additional candidates take a chunk out of both Biden and Trump, Trump is the overall beneficiary, but there is still one other factor to consider.
Polling shows that Trump loses almost half his support if he is convicted of a felony, but those voters will not go for Joe Biden.
Quinnipiac had the last poll that I saw on this front (early November), with Biden leading at 39%, Trump at 36%, and Kennedy at 22%.
If Trump loses half his support, that could be enough to put Kennedy over the top as a third-party candidate.
Now, realize we are a year away, and a lot can and will change over that time, especially with Senator Tim Scott (R-S.C.) dropping out this week. The point is GOP polling will change significantly as we get closer to election day, and deep down, I still believe this will be ahead by the time we get to Super Tuesday.
I am not as confident as I was at one time that Haley and DeSantis will join forces, but there is still a chance, which could really give Trump a run for his money and extend this race. If that happens, Trump’s legal problems could impact him significantly and possibly hand this nomination over to a DeSantis/Haley ticket.
