A new poll from Monmouth University shows that just 1 in 3 voters are confident in President Joe Biden’s physical and mental faculties, though support for the 2024 presidential candidate is around the same as from 2020.
The poll was published a week after Special Counsel Robert Hur released his report into Biden’s handling of classified documents. While the report didn’t recommend criminal charges against the president, it did note several concerning instances where he struggled to remember key dates, including when his son Beau died and when he was vice president.
Conducted between February 8 to 12 with 902 US adults, the poll found that 32% of respondents felt confident in the 81-year-old Biden’s “mental & physical stamina.” Comparatively, 51% of respondents felt confident in that of 77-year-old Republican former President Donald Trump, the GOP’s leading presidential candidate.
The disparity, polling showed, in part comes from different-aged groups of voters.
In the survey, voters over 70 had roughly the same level of confidence in both Trump and Biden. That changes drastically, however, among voters younger than 70 years old, where 52% were confident in Trump’s stamina compared to just 30% in Biden.
Despite the waning public confidence in Biden’s mental and physical strength, the poll found that support for the Democratic candidate remains about the same as in 2020 when he first faced off against Trump for president. The polling found that 46% of respondents said they either “definitely” or “probably” would vote for Trump in 2024, while just 44% said the same of Biden.
