As the Republican National Convention commences in Wisconsin, a look at polling from that key battleground state reveals the problems President Joe Biden faces as voters there consider his mental and physical fitness for office.
Though this polling was conducted before the horrible assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump, that tragedy will not likely have material fallout in assessing Biden’s cognitive state. This polling, however, was conducted in the wake of Biden’s live TV meltdown in the CNN debate. (RELATED: CHRISTIAN WHITON: Biden’s Press Conference Performance Bought Him Time — But Sealed His Fate All The Same)
In Wisconsin, the presidential race remains tight, to be sure. But since Biden’s clear stumbles before a 51 million viewer national audience, there has been a modest but discernible move toward Trump in the battleground states. For example, the American Greatness poll just conducted in Wisconsin moves from a tie to Trump +2%, in both a two-man race and in a multi-candidate field.
But the numbers beneath that topline snapshot are more compelling for Trump and against Biden, because they reveal an entirely new lane of political relevance: Biden’s incapacity. Specifically, the percentage of Wisconsin voters who responded that Biden is “capable of performing his duties as president for another four years” plunged to only 29% overall.
Pre-debate, that number was an already low 39%, but the aged president lost 10 percentage points on that critical question in just a matter of weeks. Now, among undecided 2024 voters, only 9% believe Biden is “capable.” That shockingly low number signals political peril given that swing state persuadable voters are the “holy grail” of electoral politics into the home stretch of this election season.
In a similar finding, only 34% believe that Biden should even stay in the race. Among young Wisconsin likely voters aged 18-34, only 18% believe he should remain as the Democratic nominee. In previous battleground state polls, such as the most recent Arizona survey from American Greatness, Trump is leading by four points among young adults, a group that the Democrats formerly took for granted as a natural constituency.
Combined with big gains among Hispanics, there is clearly a new emerging Trump movement. This new coalition rallies toward the principles of America First, especially muscular populism on the economy.
But it also runs away from Biden, who is increasingly viewed by substantial demographic groups as far too cognitively challenged for the rigors of the toughest job on Earth.
For months, extensive battleground state polling has revealed that the two most pressing issues on voters’ minds are inflation and immigration. The two “I’s.”
On both of these macro issues, Biden’s policies have clearly failed Americans, and especially those of modest economic means. Bidenomics inflicts substantially lower real wages on struggling American workers — and simultaneously floods the American job market with millions of new, unvetted illegal migrants who compete unjustly and unlawfully against American citizen laborers.
But now, in addition to those two “I’s” — a third can credibly be added: incapacity. The very obvious mental and physical shortcomings of Biden present not just a political problem for America into the next election and a potential January 2025 transfer of power, but in reality, an immediate national security crisis of a commander-in-chief who is mentally unable to serve.
Thankfully, even the complicit corporate media has now been compelled into covering this issue that most of them clearly knew about behind closed doors for months and even years. We must have this national conversation out in the open as adults willing to confront sometimes unpleasant realities.
After a half century of maneuvering in the Washington political muck, Biden does not deserve another day wielding government power. The most potent arguments against his misbegotten campaign are still inflation and immigration.
But incapacity must now also be added to the mix, pointing to another reason why another Trump term becomes an imperative for America.
Steve Cortes is former senior advisor to President Trump, former commentator for Fox News and CNN, and president of the League of American Workers, a populist right pro-laborer advocacy group.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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