More than three-quarters of respondents in a new US poll said Joe Biden would be too old to be effective if re-elected president next year.
But as many people in the survey said the 80-year-old Biden was “old” and “confused”, so a similar number saw his 77-year-old likely challenger, Donald Trump, as “corrupt” and “dishonest”.
The poll from the Associated Press and Norc Center for Public Affairs said 77% of Americans – 89% of Republicans and 69% of Democrats – thought age would be a problem if Biden won the White House again. Significantly fewer said Trump’s age would be a problem: 51%, with only 29% of Republicans concerned.
Trump skipped the first Republican debate last week. On Monday another national survey showed his whopping primary lead slipping only slightly thereafter.
Emerson College Polling showed Trump at 50% support, a six-point drop from a pre-debate poll. Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor widely held not to have performed strongly in Milwaukee, was second with a two-point bump to 12%.
The investor Vivek Ramaswamy, who barged into the spotlight with an angry debate display, dropped one point to 9%. Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador who confronted Ramaswamy, climbed five to 7%.
Trump faces 14 more criminal charges than he has years on the calendar, but those 91 counts under four indictments, and other legal problems including being adjudicated a rapist, have not dented his popularity with Republicans or opened him to significant attacks from his main rivals.
Spencer Kimball, executive director of Emerson College Polling, did note an apparent “softening of support for Trump since last week’s survey, where 82% of Trump voters said they would definitely support him, compared to 71% after the debate”. But on that score there was also worrying news for DeSantis, whose support “softened from 32% who would definitely support to 25%”.
Biden won a US Senate seat in 1972, ran for president in 1988 and 2008, and is already the oldest president ever elected. If re-elected, he would be 86 by the end of his second term.
Haley has repeatedly said Biden will probably die in office, claiming to warn voters of the dangers of Kamala Harris, the vice-president, rising to power herself.
The AP/Norc poll said: “When asked about the first word that comes to mind when they think of each candidate, 26% of all adults cited Biden’s age and 15% mentioned words associated with being slow and confused, while only 1% and 3% did so for Trump.”
There was a less welcome sign for Republicans, particularly those threatening to impeach Biden over alleged corruption involving his son Hunter.
“For Trump, nearly a quarter mentioned words associated with corruption, crime, lying, or untrustworthiness, while only 8% mentioned those traits for Biden.”
Two-thirds of respondents supported age limits for presidents, members of Congress and supreme court justices.
On Sunday, the Vermont senator Bernie Sanders, a former candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, was asked about Biden’s age.
“When people look at a candidate, whether he’s Joe Biden, or Trump, or Bernie Sanders, anybody else, they have to evaluate a whole lot of factors,” the 81-year-old told NBC, adding that when he met Biden recently, “he seemed fine to me”.
“But I think at the end of the day, what we have to ask ourselves is, ‘What do people stand for?’ Do you believe that women have a right to control their own bodies? Well, the president has been strong on that.”
