Is Joe Biden experiencing dementia? That’s a question the pollsters at Zogby International posed to 1,007 “likely voters.”
The results were surprising: 55% said they think the former vice president, 77, “is in the early stages of dementia.”
“Overall, subgroups who normally approve of Trump’s job as president, were the most likely to believe Biden could be suffering from dementia,” the poll found. “Thus, majorities of Republicans (77% more likely/23% less likely) and Independents (56% more likely/44% less likely) thought Joe Biden had early-onset dementia; while nearly a third of Democrats (32% more likely/68% less likely) thought this was the case.”
“At the same time, some important subgroups did not believe the vice president was exhibiting a declining mental capacity. While a majority of men (60% more likely/40% less likely) thought it this was likely, women (50% more likely/50% less likely) were less likely to think that the vice president was in the early stages of dementia,” Zogby International wrote.
There was also an inverse relationship in the data between age and the likelihood of voters believing Biden had early-onset dementia, for example; as the age of voters increased the likelihood of voters believing Biden was exhibiting early-onset dementia decreased. Younger voters aged 18-24 (60% more likely/40% less likely) and 18-29 (59% more likely/41% less likely) were more likely to believe Biden had dementia than older voters aged 65+ (50% more likely/50% less likely).
Likely voters living in medium size cities (61% more likely/39% less likely) were more likely to believe Biden had dementia than voters living in the suburbs (52% more likely/48% less likely) and large cities (55% more likely/45% less likely). Suburban women (49% more likely/51% less likely) did not think Biden was mentally slipping but men living in urban areas (62% more likely/38% less likely) believed so.
President Trump has blasted Biden – who he calls “Sleepy Joe” – over his repeated verbal stumbles and memory lapses, calling him an old man who should be put in a retirement home.
“They are going to put him in a home and other people are going to be running the country,” Trump said in early March during a rally in Charlotte, North Carolina.
“Sleepy Joe,” Trump added, “he doesn’t even know where he is or what he’s doing or what office he’s running for. Honestly, I don’t think he knows what office he’s running for.”
Biden has sought to laugh off the reports.
During a May interview on Snapchat’s “Good Luck America” daily political show, Biden was asked by host Peter Hamby how he plans to “fight back” against the notion that he’s “old” and “kind of lame.”
“The Shorenstein Center up at Harvard did an analysis of all of the anti-Biden memes out there on the internet,” Hamby said. “According to them, the top three slogans they’re seeing, this is from the left and the right, are Dementia Joe, Sleepy Joe, Creepy Joe. Barack Obama reportedly said last week that his daughters had been showing him anti-Biden TikToks. Basically, there’s an entire discourse on the internet right now that’s painting you as creepy and old and out of touch and kind of lame. How do you fight back against that?”
Biden laughed, then said, “I can hardly wait to get onto the stage with Donald Trump. Look, I certainly miss being out on the trail connecting face-to-face to people. Trump is a master at laying nicknames on people.”
“But the vast majority of the voters out there, including young people, are not getting all their news from the internet,” he said. “But I’m trying to compete there. We’re getting started late in the comparative sense. One hundred and two million video views across social media platforms since mid-March for me.”
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