Mental capabilities on ballot
About 60% of U.S. adults polled doubt acuity of Biden, Trump
WASHINGTON — A poll finds that a significant share of U.S. adults doubt the mental capabilities of 81-year-old President Joe Biden and 77-year-old Donald Trump, the former president and current Republican front-runner in what could be a rematch of the 2020 election.
More than 63 percent say they’re not very or not at all confident in Biden’s mental capability to serve effectively as president, turning his coming State of the Union address into something of a real-time audition for a second term. A similar but slightly smaller share of 57 percent say that Trump lacks the memory and acuity for the job.
The findings from a new survey by The Associated PRESS-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research point to a tough presidential election in which issues such as age and mental competence could be more prevalent than in any other political contest in modern times.
People’s views of Biden’s memory and acuity have soured since January 2022, when about half of those polled expressed similar concerns. (That survey didn’t ask a similar question about Trump.)
In a major risk for Biden, independents are much more likely to say that they lack confidence in his mental abilities (80 percent) compared with Trump’s (56 percent). And Democrats are generally more concerned about Biden’s mental capabilities than Republicans are with Trump’s, raising the stakes of Biden’s upcoming speech to a joint session of Congress on Thursday.
Going into the big event, just 38 percent of U.S. adults approve of how Biden is handling his job as president, while 61 percent disapprove. Democrats (74 percent) are much likelier than independents
(20 percent) and Republicans (6 percent) to favor his performance. But there’s broad discontent on the way Biden is handling a variety of issues, including the economy, immigration and foreign policy.
Nearly 6 in 10 (57 percent) Americans think the national economy is somewhat or much worse off than before Biden took office in 2021. Only 3 in 10 adults say it’s better under his leadership.
The poll of 1,102 adults was conducted Feb. 22-26, using a sample drawn from NORC’S probability-based Amerispeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.