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Nearly 75% of Americans don’t want Biden to run for reelection, poll says

Nearly 75% of Americans don’t want Biden to run for reelection, poll says

President Joe Biden insists that it has not yet been decided whether to run for a second term. But the public sure does.

Nearly three in four Americans (72%) said they don’t want Biden to run again in 2024, according to a new national poll by Marquette Law School released Thursday, a staggering number — especially when you consider that the rate of Biden’s approval in the same poll was relatively solid (for him) at 45%.

It’s not then that large swaths of the American public think Biden is doing a terrible job and want him out. It’s just that people — on the other side of the political spectrum — don’t want him to run again in two years.

While Republicans are surprisingly keen on Biden bowing down (88% don’t want him to run again), they’re also independents (79% don’t want him to run again).

And even among Biden’s Democratic base, his numbers on the issue are middling, with 52% saying he should run again and the other 48% saying he shouldn’t.

Surveys carried out during the summer by the CNN and the New York Times/Siena College found that large majorities of Democrats wanted the party to nominate someone besides Biden for president in 2024.

It’s not immediately clear why so many people in Marquette’s poll are leaning against a Biden re-election bid, as the pollster did not ask respondents to offer a reason for their skepticism.

But past polls suggest that Biden’s advanced age — he is 79 and will turn 82 shortly after the 2024 election — plays a big factor in Americans’ doubts about him serving a second term.

Regardless of the reasons, it’s clear that Democratic politicians got the message about Biden. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s response on Thursday, when asked by the CNN whether Biden should run again or step aside in 2024.

“President Biden is the president of the United States,” Pelosi replied. “He did a great service to our country. He defeated Donald Trump, let’s not forget that. I’m not going to get into politics about whether the president should run or not.”

Which is not an answer to the question you were asked!

Other Democrats have been more willing than Pelosi to voice their concerns about Biden running again.

“My hunch is that we need new leadership across the board — Democrats, Republicans, I think it’s time for a generational movement,” said Representative Tim Ryan, who is the Democratic nominee for the open Senate seat in Ohio, in a recent interview.

Ryan later added, “The president said from the beginning that he would be a bridge to the next generation, which is basically what I was saying.”

(Fact Check: True! At a March 2020 campaign event, Biden had the following to say: “Look, I see myself as a bridge, not like anything else.”)

Over the summer, Minnesota Representative Dean Phillips said, “I think the country would be well served by a new generation of compelling, well-prepared and dynamic Democrats to step up.”

New York representative Carolyn Maloney said she didn’t “believe that [Biden está] running for re-election”. (She later apologized and said she wants Biden running.)

And the representative from MinnesotaAngie Craig, said: “I would say we need new leaders in Washington up and down the polls in the Democratic Party.”

It’s unclear how much doubt within his own party and polls like this one will sway Biden.

His allies will note, for example, that in the same Marquette poll, Biden leads both former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis in hypothetical general election showdowns.

What’s more, a clear majority of those surveyed (69%) also said they don’t want Trump to run for the White House again in 2024.

And it’s possible that the media attention surrounding a Biden campaign ad — perhaps sometime next spring — would change Americans’ perceptions of whether he should run again.

But the fact of the moment is that Biden has a hill of perception to climb. Most Americans just don’t want him to run for a second term.

*This text is an analysis by the editor-in-chief of CNN International

Source: CNN Brasil