Politics

POLL: Less Than Half Of Democrats Want Biden To Run For Reelection

(Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

Michael Ginsberg Congressional Correspondent
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Only 48% of Democrats want President Joe Biden to run for reelection in 2024, a poll released Thursday by the Associated Press found.

Overall, 28% of Americans said they want Biden run for reelection, the AP-NORC poll of 1,161 adults found. The poll, conducted Jan. 13 to 18, had a margin of error of 3.8%.

Biden, who became the oldest president upon his inauguration in January 2021 and will be 81 in 2024, has been dogged since the 2020 primaries by rumors that he would only be a one-term president. The poll found that only 28% of Americans were extremely or very confident that Biden has the “mental capability to serve effectively as president,” and only 25% were extremely or very confident that Biden is “healthy enough to serve effectively as president.”

The last president not to seek a term for which he was constitutionally eligible was Lyndon Johnson in 1968. (RELATED: Biden Says America Is ‘More Unified’ Now Than When He Took Office)

Only 16% of Americans believe that Biden has made the country more united, compared to 43% who think he has made it more divided, according to the poll. Forty-two percent believe he has not had much of an impact in terms of the country’s unity.

Forty-seven percent of Americans had a positive opinion of Biden, compared to 50% who had a negative opinion of the 46th president. Vice President Kamala Harris was viewed positively by 43% of Americans, and negatively by 45%.

The same poll found that 27% of Americans, including 56% of Republicans, want former President Donald Trump to run in 2024.

Faced with a series of negative polls, Biden pushed back during his Wednesday press conference.

“I don’t believe the polls,” he said when asked about declining support from moderate and independent voters.