As the Republican National Convention gets underway in Wisconsin, polls in the key battleground state highlight the challenges facing President Joe Biden as voters consider his mental and physical fitness to run.
While the poll was conducted before the horrific assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump, a tragedy that likely won't have a material impact on assessing Biden's cognitive status, it was conducted after Biden's emotional outburst live on CNN during the debate. (Related article: Christian Whitton: Biden's press conference performance bought him time, but ultimately sealed his fate)
The presidential race remains close in Wisconsin, but Biden's apparent stumble has 51 million viewers Nationally, Trump has seen modest but noticeable increases in support in battleground states. For example, a recent poll on American greatness found that: Wisconsin went from even to 2% for Trumpin both two-candidate and multiple-candidate elections.
But the numbers beneath the topline snapshot are in Trump's favor and Biden's disadvantage because they reveal an entirely new political relevance: Biden's incompetence. Specifically, the percentage of Wisconsin voters who say Biden “can handle four more years of presidency.” Overall, that figure dropped to just 29%..
Before the debate, that number was already low at 39%, but the aging president lost 10% of his approval rating on this key question in just a few weeks. Now, among undecided voters in the 2024 election, Only 9% of people think Biden is “competent.” This shockingly low figure signals a political crisis, given that persuadable voters in battleground states are the holy grail of electoral politics in the waning days of an election season.
A similar poll found that only 34% of Wisconsin voters ages 18-34 think Biden should stay in the race. Only 18% think he should remain the Democratic nominee.Previous battleground state polls, including American Greatness' latest Arizona poll, have given Trump a 4-point lead among young people once considered the Democrats' natural base.
There has been a huge surge in support among Hispanics, and apparently a new Trump movement has emerged, a new coalition rallying around America First, a strong economic populism.
But it also distances itself from Biden, who is increasingly viewed by significant segments of the population as having far too little cognitive ability to withstand the rigors of the toughest job on the planet.
Polling in major battleground states conducted over several months has revealed that the two most pressing issues on voters' minds are inflation and immigration — the two “I's.”
On both of these macro issues, Biden's policies clearly fail Americans, especially those who are least able. Bidennomics has drastically reduced the real wages of struggling American workers while simultaneously flooding the U.S. labor market with millions of new, unvetted, illegal immigrants, unfairly and illegally competing with U.S. citizen workers.
But now, to those two “I's,” a third could certainly be added: incapacity. Biden's very obvious mental and physical impairments not only pose a political problem for America in the upcoming election and the possible transfer of power in January 2025, but in fact present an immediate national security risk of a commander in chief who is mentally unable to carry out his duties.
Thankfully, even the complicit corporate media has been forced to report on this issue, even though most of it has apparently known about it behind closed doors for months, maybe even years. We, as adults prepared to face sometimes uncomfortable realities, must bring this issue into the open and national debate.
After half a century of maneuvering in the quagmire of Washington politics, Biden is unfit to govern again, and the most powerful arguments against his misguided campaign remain inflation and immigration.
But now incompetence has been added to the mix, providing another reason why re-election of Trump would be essential for America.
Steve Cortez is a former senior adviser to President Trump, a former commentator for Fox News and CNN, and the president of the Federation of American Labor, a right-wing populist group that supports workers.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
All content produced by the Daily Caller News Foundation, an independent, nonpartisan news service, is available free of charge to any legitimate news publisher with a large readership. All republished articles must include our logo, reporter byline, and affiliation with the DCNF. If you have any questions about our guidelines or partnering with us, please contact us at licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org.
