President Joe Biden celebrated his 80th birthday on Sunday, but along with that milestone came some crushing poll results that may have him seriously questioning the wisdom of another run for the White House in 2024, as Newsweek reports.
According to the outlet, a recent survey conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies revealed that, despite the Democrats' success in staving off a Republican wave in the midterm elections, there is not necessarily a deluge of support for the idea of Biden mounting another presidential campaign.
The poll indicated that 51% of respondent Democrats voiced support for Biden's candidacy in the next cycle, 37% declared their opposition to the notion, and 12% were unsure.
As Newsweek noted, 60% of those who said Biden should not run again said that his advanced age was the primary reason for their opinion on the matter, which was surely unwelcome news on the anniversary of the president's birth.
The opinions reflected in the poll should not be entirely surprising, however, given that Biden is the first octogenarian to hold the office of commander in chief, with all of his predecessors having reached that age threshold only after leaving the role.
For his part, however, Biden has repeatedly brushed aside concerns about his age and cognitive state, insisting that he is a fit for office as he has ever been, as Breitbart notes.
"I no more think of myself as being as old as I am than fly," Biden told 60 Minutes back in September, adding, "I mean, it's just not I haven't – observed anything in terms of – there's not things I don't do now that I did before, whether it's physical, or mental, or anything else."
Even so, as Newsweek noted separately, Biden's approval rating is still lower than that of any other Democrat to hold the office in the last 44 years, a fact that should give any potential candidate – incumbent or not – serious pause.
The FiveThirtyEight aggregate of polls indicated that even after the surprisingly positive Democrat showing in the midterm, just 41.7% of Americans approved of Biden's job performance, with 53.1% expressing disapproval.
Those numbers fall below the marks hit by former presidents, including Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Jimmy Carter, at the same point during their first (or, in Carter's case, only) term in office.
Despite the seemingly prevailing view among voters – including Democrats – that Biden should recede from the spotlight when it comes to 2024, the president has remained defiant, saying it is his indeed his intention to seek a second term, as Fox News notes.
"I think everybody wants me to run," Biden said recently, but given recent polling to the contrary, Democrat Party leaders may have little choice but to swiftly disabuse the aged pol of that misconception and gently usher him off the public stage once and for all.
