Almost half the voters polled in the aftermath of President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance said the Democratic Party should replace him as their presidential nominee.
The nationwide Florida Atlantic University poll released Wednesday found 45% of voters would like to see someone else as the Democratic nominee, 40% said he should remain as the Democratic nominee, and 16% weren’t sure.
Democrats weren’t as likely to support jettisoning Biden, with 55% saying their party should continue with him. But 35% of Democrats said he should be replaced.
And younger voters were far more likely to favor replacing Biden than older voters.
Among voters under age 50, just 33% favored keeping Biden, with 55% wanting him replaced.
Among those aged 50 and older, 45% said the Democratic party should continue with Biden and 37% wanted him replaced.
Close race
Still, the poll found, the overall Trump vs. Biden race remains nail-bitingly close, with 46% of likely voters supporting Trump and 44% for Biden, which is within the survey’s margin of error.
It was similarly close among a somewhat larger group consisting of all registered voters, with 44% for Trump and 42% for Biden.
“The race still looks very close to us, and the fundamentals of the race I don’t think necessarily changed despite Joe Biden’s difficult performance at the debate,” said Kevin Wagner, a Florida Atlantic University political scientist.
But, Wagner said, the fact that the poll, conducted Saturday and Sunday, didn’t show Biden’s support cratering in the wake of the debate doesn’t mean the president and Democrats should celebrate.
“Sometimes it takes time for significant events to percolate in a way that creates measurable opinion,” he said. “While I suspect Democrats would be at least somewhat relieved that the topline numbers didn’t seem to move that much, it might be a little early to stop holding your breath.”
Wagner, who also is co-director of FAU’s PolCom Lab, a collaboration of the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies and Department of Political Science, which conducted the poll, said public opinion may change as people, including those who didn’t see the debate themselves, talk about it at work, at family gatherings, and at community events.
“Even if they watched the debate, they may not have decided exactly how they feel about it,” he said.
Disgust, sadness, fear
The poll sought to gauge the emotional responses to the candidates and the debate — and voters’ reactions were revealing.
Disgust was the most frequent emotion, cited by 24% of voters in response to Biden and cited by 27% in response to Trump.
After that top emotional response, voters’ reactions to the two candidates diverged.
Sadness, cited by 22% of voters, was the second most common emotional response to Biden, followed by fear at 13% and pride at 12%, joy/happiness, 9%, and anger at 8%.
Joy/happiness, cited by 22% of all voters, was the second most common emotional response to Trump, followed by pride at 18%, anger and fear, both at 11%, and sadness at 4%.
Partisan differences
Sadness was the top emotion toward Biden among Democrats, at 24%, followed by pride at 20%.
Disgust was the top emotion toward Biden among Republicans, at 38%, followed by sadness at 19%
Disgust was also the top emotion toward Biden among independents, at 28%, followed by sadness, at 24%.
The poll didn’t find any significant differences in emotional responses toward Biden based on age or gender.
Disgust was the top emotion toward Trump among Democrats, at 47%, followed by fear at 18%.
Joy/happiness was the top emotion toward Trump among Republicans, followed by pride at 37%.
Republicans were “much more pleased with the former president’s performance than Democrats were of Joe Biden’s performance,” Wagner said. “There was significantly more happiness on the Trump side than on the Biden side.”
And for Democrats, the emotional response of sadness indicates “many of them did not get what they wanted from the debate. That does not mean necessarily that they won’t vote for Joe Biden — but it is an important warning sign,” Wagner said.
“It did not generate anger, it generated sadness,” he said. “In many ways, they hoped it would be better.”
Wagner said the responses don’t necessarily mean that Democrats won’t vote for Biden. He said that would probably be the wrong interpretation.
The share of people who’d like to see a different Democratic candidate may reflect a long-standing desire by voters to see candidates other than the choices they had in 2002, Wagner said.
Independents were almost evenly divided in their emotional responses to Trump, with 26% citing disgust and 23% joy/happiness.
Women were somewhat more likely than men to offer disgust as their emotional response to Trump and men were significantly more likely than women to cite joy/happiness toward Trump.
Older voters were somewhat more likely to cite fear or joy/happiness toward Trump than younger voters. Younger voters are significantly more likely to cite pride in regard to Trump than older voters.
Close race
The nationwide contest — Trump leading 46% to 44% among likely voters — remains within the poll’s 3 percentage point margin of error.
Wagner said the share of undecided voters — 5% among likely voters and 6% among all voters — is relatively low. “That’s a pretty good indicator that these candidates are well-known commodities going into November.”
Biden does better among women likely voters, among whom he leads 46% to 42%, and among voters 50 and older, among whom he leads 48% to 45%.
Trump does better among men, among whom he leads 50% to 41%, and among voters under age 50, among whom he leads 47% to 37%.
Trump is the overwhelming favorite — 89% — among Republicans and Biden is the overwhelming favorite — 84% — among Democrats. Relatively few Democrats or Republicans were undecided or considering another candidate.
Independent voters favor Trump over Biden, 42% to 35%, but a far higher share of independents (11%) said they would vote for another candidate or were undecided (12%).
The latest poll represents a slight improvement for Trump — though it’s so small as to be statistically insignificant — compared with an FAU poll conducted from April 26 through April 28.
In the April nationwide poll, the results were 47% for Biden and 46% for Trump among likely voters.
Among the larger sample of all voters in April, the two candidates were tied at 44%.
RFK Jr.
The presence of independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. didn’t dramatically alter the results. The poll suggested Kennedy has a slightly more negative impact on Biden than on Trump.
When Kennedy was included among the options, Trump had 42% of likely voters, Biden had 39%, and Kennedy had 10%.
When pollsters asked the question that included Kennedy, 4% of likely voters picked another candidate and 5% were undecided.
In a Biden vs. Trump matchup that didn’t include Kennedy’s name, 6% still said they’d prefer another candidate and 5% were undecided.
The results of the Biden-Trump-Kennedy question are more favorable to Trump in the latest poll than they were in April.
In April, the three-candidate question found 39% for Trump, 44% for Biden and 11% for Kennedy.
Harris, Obama or …?
Though significant shares of voters thought Biden should be replaced at the top of the ticket, it’s not clear who the party would pick if the party needed to find someone else.
Democrats were given several potential choices, including an obvious possibility, Vice President Kamala Harris and an unlikely choice, former First Lady Michelle Obama.
- 25% picked Harris.
- 21% picked Obama.
- 17% picked Gov. Gavin Newsom of California.
- 7% picked Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan.
- 6% picked Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. transportation secretary and former mayor of South Bend, Ind.
- 2% picked U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, a member of The Squad of progressive members of Congress.
Wagner said hypothetical questions such as this often lead people to go with the names they’ve heard the most, such as Harris, Obama and Newsom. “Sometimes when you’re testing candidates a lot of it is name recognition. Obama, Harris and Newsom are some of the well-known options.”
Newsom, Whitmer and Buttigieg are widely seen as future candidates for their party’s nomination.
The poll found 16% of Democrats were undecided and 6% said they’d like a candidate other than the six options they were given.
Harris was the choice of 33% of Democrats under age 50 and Obama was the pick of 28%. Just 8% of younger Democrats were undecided.
Harris was the choice of 20% of Democrats age 50 and older, and Newsom was the pick of 19%. Among older Democrats, 22% were undecided.
Fine print
The poll of 961 U.S. registered voters was conducted June 29 and June 30 by Mainstreet Research for Florida Atlantic University’s PolCom Lab, which is a collaboration of the School of Communication and Multimedia Studies and Department of Political Science.
The survey used an online panel and automated phone calls to reach other voters. It has a margin of error equivalent to plus or minus 3 percentage points for the full survey of Democrats, Republicans and independents.
However, the margin of error for smaller groups, such as Republicans or Democrats, men and women, or younger and older voters, would be higher because the sample sizes are smaller.
The total percentages for some questions don’t always total 100% because of rounding.
Anthony Man can be reached at aman@sunsentinel.com and can be found @browardpolitics on Bluesky, Threads, Facebook and Mastodon.
