Joe Biden’s poll numbers collapsed following his first debate performance Thursday. According to a new CNN poll released Monday, the Democratic presidential candidate is down 10 points at 22% — now just five points ahead of Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA). The slide comes after Harris savaged Biden over racial controversies during their first primary debate.
A new Quinnipiac University poll, released Tuesday, showed similar results — while Biden had 30% of the vote in a mid-June poll, he dropped to just 22% after the debates. Meanwhile, the Q poll showed Harris now “virtually tied” with Biden at 20% of the vote — up from just 7% in the previous poll.
Now, Biden’s aides are rushing to get him back in the ring — but it may be too late for damage control. Biden’s post-debate drop may be proving what some predicted about his campaign early on: that his frontrunner status was always squishy, writes Phillip Klein in the Washington Examiner.
Biden collapsing
Biden quickly soared to the top of the Democratic primary field in April on the strength of name recognition, but some predicted that his candidacy would soon deflate as the 76-year-old was proven to be out of touch with today’s more radical Democratic party. After weeks of speculation about whether this hypothesis was true, Thursday’s primary debate offered the first real test.
Going into the first debate, Biden was already set up for trouble: his most recent controversy, one of many, touched on race. In one of the highlights of the night, Harris, who is black, laced into Biden over his prior comments on working with segregationist Democrats in the past. Harris also gave Biden a drubbing over his past opposition to a federal busing program to end segregation. Biden, still not realizing what year it is, defended his position from a states’ rights viewpoint.
The exchange was one of the key moments of the night, and it left many saying that Harris was the biggest winner, with Biden among the biggest losers.
Aides rushing for damage control
According to NBC, Biden’s staff was nervous going into the first debate. In the aftermath, they’re eager to move on from Harris’s attack. “This is super heavy stuff that can’t play out in a ten-person debate. Harris had a strategy that took advantage of that reality,” one Biden campaign official said.
A day after the debate, Biden tried to shore up his record on civil rights with a scheduled talk on racial injustice at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition International Convention on Friday. In the lead up to the event, hosted by Rainbow/PUSH founder Reverend Jesse Jackson, the civil rights leader told CNN that Biden’s views placed him on the “wrong side of history.” And Biden certainly looked defensive as he delivered a 25-minute speech on his civil rights record.
“I want to be absolutely clear about my record and position on racial injustice, including busing,” Biden said. “I have never, never, never, ever opposed voluntary busing.”
Biden can’t last
Thursday’s debate left Biden’s campaign questioning whether his name recognition and association with President Barack Obama will be enough to deflect attacks from rivals. For weeks, Biden’s seeming success in navigating early campaign controversies, from a groping scandal to plagiarism incidents, validated the theory that he was well-established enough to survive bad publicity and attacks on his record from his more progressive competitors.
Top staffers told NBC they still believe Biden is strong enough to take the hits. But Thursday’s debate seems to have validated another, more pessimistic theory: while initially declared the primary frontrunner, Biden was considered early on by some pundits to be a squishy candidate whose weaknesses would eventually show under pressure.
They certainly showed Thursday. Biden spent much of the night vehemently defending his record on civil rights and other issues. Labeled “Sleepy Joe” by President Donald Trump, Biden sounded old and doddering, and at times incoherent. In one moment, he claimed to have gotten “the number of clips in a gun banned.”
The poll results reflect what many witnessed for themselves Thursday night on TV. The Biden/Harris exchange perfectly encapsulated the troubles that many have predicted for Biden, and Biden’s post-debate drop in the polls presages more slips and slides to come.
This won’t be the last time that Biden is attacked by fellow Democrats. He will have enough trouble defending his insufficiently woke past. Add to that his age, and things aren’t looking good.
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