Concerns about his age have hampered President Joe Biden for years, and pollsters, political experts, and other Democratic strategists believe that the best way for the president to potentially shake that narrative ahead of the 2024 general election is something he generally avoids: getting out in public.
A slew of polls conducted this spring show that a majority of voters believe Biden, who at 81 years old is the oldest person to ever hold the office of the president, is physically and mentally incapable of effectively governing.
Former President Donald Trump, the likely Republican presidential nominee, is just roughly 3 1/2 years younger than Biden. Voters do voice some concerns about Trump’s cognitive abilities but at a significantly lower rate than they do about Biden, which DePauw University professor of political and media communication Jeff McCall argues comes down to Trump’s willingness to mix it up in public.
“In this regard, Trump seems to have the optics advantage for now. Biden’s handlers will just have to put him out in public more often to counter the concerns that the president is just not robust enough for another term. A basement strategy can’t work this year since there is no COVID excuse to hide behind,” he told the Washington Examiner. “And if the Biden team is afraid to expose the president to the perils of public engagement, they will be rhetorically acknowledging that Biden just really isn’t up to the task of four more years.
“The only way for both Biden and Trump to manage the question of whether they are up to handling the job of president for the next four years is to prove it in public view. No amount of press releases or endorsements from allies about how fit the respective candidates are will suffice for the citizens, who will want real proof in front of their eyes,” McCall added. “The candidates will just have to put themselves in the public arena, engaging audiences, doing interviews, and generally moving about.”
Neil Newhouse, however, told the Washington Examiner that simply putting Biden in public more often is a risky strategy for Democrats.
Newhouse, a leading Republican pollster and co-founder of Public Opinion Strategies, said in an interview that “if the White House had confidence in his ability to perform on the stump or in kind of like out in Hastings, they would have done that already.”
“I think there’s a concern that his performance would be uneven and kind of hit or miss. I think they are probably unwilling to put them out there. I think that’s a very risky strategy,” he claimed. “The challenge of putting Biden out there in the public is that the press will cover it, and they’ll see him walking and talking and shuffling, and he looks old. He appears old. He seems old and aged and infirm, and that’s just not a good look. So that’s why that strategy is extraordinarily risky.”
Newhouse did say he thought that relying on the debates “is probably a little bit better for simply because they can rest him ahead of time” and that the president “could perform for probably a couple of hours.”
The White House, Biden’s campaign, and his political allies all frequently discount questions about his age and faculties, and when asked by the Washington Examiner on Wednesday if the campaign plans to ramp up Biden’s retail politicking in the coming months, Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz responded simply, “Are you sure you didn’t mean to send this to the Trump campaign?”
Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s campaign press secretary, claimed that, despite Trump’s own age, he remains “as sharp as a tack as evidenced by his hourlong off-script rally speeches, near-daily interactions with the hostile news media, and incomparable memory recall.”
“Meanwhile, Crooked Joe Biden is severely cognitively declined, shuffles around like he’s brain-dead zombie, and everyone with eyes can see it,” she said in a statement.
Biden’s mental acuity was thrust back into the spotlight Wednesday morning after the Wall Street Journal published a lengthy investigation claiming that Biden is showing clear signs of decline behind closed doors.
The paper interviewed dozens of administration officials and lawmakers on both sides of the aisle who claimed that the president is forced to read off of notes, mumbles, and appears distracted during meetings and briefings.
Congressional Democrats responded forcefully, attacking the Wall Street Journal for relying on anonymous sources for their report and claiming to have witnessed first-hand that Biden remains “on top of his game.”
A number of Democratic campaign operatives familiar with the Biden team chided that report when speaking to the Washington Examiner on Thursday, with one strategist citing it as a “clear sign of editorial bias,” as the paper’s owner, Rupert Murdoch, has a lengthy history of supporting Trump and other Republican politicians.
Still, four of those Democratic operatives conceded that Biden’s age will likely play an outsize role in the election.
“President Biden and Donald Trump are effectively the same age, but the two men’s demeanors couldn’t be more different,” one strategist explained, claiming that difference accounts for voters’ perceptions of Biden. “The president is quiet and calm. He’s a career politician who’s seen more than his fair share of personal tragedy and actually thinks before he speaks. Trump is an egomaniacal blowhard, but just because he’s willing to act crazy in public doesn’t make him any younger.”
“The country might be concerned about President Biden’s age now, but they won’t be once he mops the floor with Trump at the debates,” a second operative declared.
“Concerns about the president’s age are justified, but age is just one factor in determining fitness for office,” a third strategist stated. “All voters need to do is take a look at the character of these two men, let alone their policies, and the choice should be made for them.”
McCall similarly agreed that “vigor” and “cognitive capabilities” should matter more than age alone to not only voters weighing their options, but also media covering the election.
“Certainly, there are plenty of senior citizens as old or older than Biden and Trump who are fully active and mentally sharp. News stories that focus only on age without sufficient discussion of capability come off as ageist,” he told the Washington Examiner. “The media generally overlooked obvious signs of Biden’s difficulties during the 2020 campaign, as he ran his basement election strategy. And the press has been quite silent on this subject through most of the Biden presidency. It seems the press has suddenly become interested now that polling indicates the public is concerned about the stamina and cognitive health of the president.”
Polls consistently show Biden’s age to be a significant sticking point for voters ahead of November.
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A survey conducted by NBC News in February found that a majority of Democratic voters, 54%, had major or moderate concerns about the president’s general fitness for office, while 64% of all respondents voiced “major” concerns about Biden’s age and health.
An ABC poll conducted that same month found an even larger number, 86%, outright stating that Biden is too old to serve a second term as president. Of that group, 59% said both Biden and Trump were too old to run the country.
