Shock finding in DailyMail.com survey suggests Trump can STILL be defeated in 2024… but only if Dems commit to one incredible gamble, writes poll expert JAMES JOHNSON
It is virtually impossible for President Joe Biden to win the 2024 election without winning a majority of independent voters. He may have lost that for good now.
That is the outcome of an exclusive DailyMail.com poll among politically independent voters who watched the first presidential debate on Thursday evening.
However, this survey of independent Americans also contained a hidden glimmer of hope for Democrats who had been discouraged by their front-runner’s shockingly weak performance.
Because if President Biden were to drop out of the race — as prominent Democrats and influential left-wing media commentators are urging him to do — and allow his party to coalesce around an alternative candidate, there remains a chance of defeating Trump in a general election.
President Biden’s disastrous debate performance may have irreparably damaged his support among independent voters, a DailyMail.com poll shows
Make no mistake: As previous DailyMail.com polls have shown, voters have a dim view of the aging president.
Before the debate, 48 percent of independent voters said they had an unfavorable opinion of Biden (41 percent said the same about Trump).
But Biden’s struggling performance during the debates, which fell short of even the lowest expectations, reinforced the idea that he is simply too old for the job.
“I was worried about him,” Miguel, a 23-year-old Hispanic voter from Missouri who does not consider himself a Republican or Democrat, told the Mail.
Miguel wasn’t the only one.
“Sad,” “scared,” “confused,” “worried” and “uneasy” were the most common reactions among these voters to Biden’s debate performance. While these Americans expressed sympathy for the 81-year-old grandfather, they do not believe he should be in the race.
Fifty-five percent of independents said Biden “should no longer be the Democratic nominee.”
It is true that then-Senator Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election, defeating Republican John McCain without casting an independent vote. But Obama benefited from historic turnout among black voters.
Biden will not enjoy the same level of minority support.
The desire for Biden to drop out was shared by 49 percent of black independents and 57 percent of Hispanic independents.
Strikingly, four in 10 independents who voted for Biden in 2020 agreed that the party should continue without him.
Maybe they are on the right track.
Despite many analysts and pundits feeling that Trump won Thursday’s debate with energy and vigor, the DailyMail.com poll showed he did not win over a significant percentage of new voters
Hidden in this research is a glimmer of hope for left-wing Americans terrified by the prospect of another Trump presidency.
The Mail poll shows that Trump failed to win a significant percentage of new voters, despite his victory on the evening.
Before the debate, 48 percent of independents had a favorable view of Trump. After the showdown, that metric rose just a few percentage points to 51 percent — a statistically insignificant number within the poll’s margin of error — even though six in 10 voters thought Trump “performed best in the debate.”
Moreover, the perception of Trump was mixed.
He was seen as the most physically strong, presidential and mentally astute – but also the most condescending, annoying and rude (Biden was seen as the most boring).
Trump won because Biden lost so badly. The former real estate magnate did not invite himself again. Trump remains the most unpopular major party politician in the country – after Biden.
The clear conclusion from these results is that there are opportunities for the Democrats if they can switch their candidate.
One in eight independent voters in our survey said they plan to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in November. While it is extremely unlikely that the Democratic elite will rally behind him, there is a clear desire among independents to hear what he has to say.
Fifty-five percent of independents believe RFK Jr. should have had a seat on the CNN debate stage. That includes nearly six in 10 people who supported Biden in 2020.
More than half of independent voters believe RFK Jr. should have been included in the CNN debate
Vice President Kamala Harris is often mentioned as a possible successor to Biden, but she is struggling with poor polls among American voters.
And what about the other Democrats so often mentioned as potential Biden replacements?
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and California Governor Gavin Newsom are not well known to the American public, making polls about their election prospects unreliable. But their relative anonymity could be an asset.
They would be presented to voters as a clean slate, without the enormous baggage of more famous politicians, such as Vice President Kamala Harris.
Previous surveys have made one thing clear: Harris is unlikely to do much better than Biden against Trump.
She was recently named the least popular vice president in history in a Mail poll of all September 2023 voters.
The words most commonly used to describe her were “incompetent” and “idiot.”
A quarter of Democrats, one in four Black voters and a majority of 18 to 29 year olds said they favored Biden replacing her as his running mate.
There is no doubt that the path forward for Democrats is unclear.
Although independents turned away from Biden by Thursday night’s debate, they did not gravitate toward Trump in any significant way.
There is a way forward for Democrats.
This is not about President Biden or Vice President Harris.