The first New York Times/Siena College poll since president Joe Biden‘s alarming debate performance shows former President Donald Trump ahead of Biden, with a three-point lead in just a week. At the same time, concerns are mounting about Biden’s age and ability to win a second term.
The poll, released Wednesday, was one of the first major readings of the race since Thursday’s debate, and shows Trump beating Biden 49% to 43% among likely voters nationwide, the largest lead Trump has had in a Times poll since 2015. Trump’s margin has increased three points among both likely and registered voters since the debate; he now leads registered voters 49% to 41%.
The president, 81, has redoubled his efforts to stay in the race amid criticism that Thursday’s debate left him too old and frail to serve another four years, let alone win the election. Biden told allies in a phone call Wednesday that he plans to stay in the race regardless, even as Democrats raise alarms about his candidacy.
Biden’s campaign pollster pushed back against the idea that a poor showing in the Times poll four months before the election means Biden can no longer win. The Times’ own chief political analyst, Nate Cohn, also argued that the results do not reveal a fundamental shift in the race.
“Both internal and external polls confirm that the race remains incredibly close, and I agree with the Times that today’s polls do not fundamentally change the course of the race,” Biden campaign pollster Molly Murphy said in a statement. Murphy also highlighted a silver lining for Biden in the polls: that he continues to erode Trump’s support among independents.
The Times poll isn’t the only bad news for the president’s campaign since the debate, where he at times appeared confused and struggled to answer questions clearly. A CBS News poll released Wednesday showed Trump leading Biden by two points nationally and by three points in all battleground states.
Both polls pointed to widespread and growing concern about Biden’s age. The Times poll found that the share of voters who think Biden is too old to be president has increased five points since the debate, to 74% of voters. Meanwhile, 42% of voters think Trump, 78, is too old.
This week another CNN poll was published found that most voters believe Democrats have a better chance of winning the presidency if the party chooses a different nominee. The same poll also found that Vice President Kamala Harris fared slightly better than Biden in a head-to-head matchup with Trump, though both matchups fell within the poll’s margin of error.
The Times/Siena College surveyed 1,532 registered voters by telephone from June 28, the day after the debate, through July 2.
Even as two Democrats in Congress called on Biden to resign, and others openly speculated that he would lose to Trump if he stayed, Biden remained stubborn. during a phone call with staff on Wednesday.
“I’m the nominee of the Democratic Party,” Biden reportedly said. “Nobody is pushing me out. I’m not leaving.”
