President Joe Biden’s mental acuity is in doubt by a large number of Americans, recently released polling data suggests.
A majority of Americans do not consider Biden “mentally sharp,” according to an I&I/TIPP poll released Monday. Pollsters surveyed 1,306 U.S. adults on October 27-29 on Biden’s fitness for office, including his mental sharpness, energy, and communications skills. The poll has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.
Presented with the statement “President Biden is mentally sharp,” more than half of respondents, 50.2%, said they either strongly or somewhat disagreed with the statement. A plurality of the respondents, 36.9%, said they strongly disagreed with the statement. About 42% of respondents said they either strongly or somewhat agreed that the president is “mentally sharp.”
Biden’s numbers for his energy are similarly poor. Respondents overall disagreed with the statement “President Biden is energetic” by a margin of 50.3% to 42.4%. Respondents ranked Biden’s communications skills more favorably, though the consensus was split evenly at 46.6% on whether Americans considered Biden a “good communicator.”
According to Tipp Insights, the poll exemplifies Biden’s loss of support among independents, suburbanites, and other demographics he had some success in converting during the 2020 election. Tipp Insights reported:
As with any such poll, there is a sharp partisan divide, with 74% of Democrats saying Biden is mentally sharp, compared with only 13% of Republicans.
But the poll sheds still more light on the erosion of Biden’s support among independents, women, middle-income Americans, and suburbanites – groups that were key to his becoming president.
Among independents, for example, only 34% say Biden is mentally sharp, while 58% say he isn’t. Among women, 40% say he is mentally sharp and 51% say he isn’t. That’s worse than among men, 45% of whom say Biden is sharp vs. 50% who say he isn’t. Biden fares even worse among married women, only 36% of whom think he is mentally sharp compared with 58% who say he isn’t.
Biden’s mental acuity has often been an area of note in right-of-center news sources, though it has been largely ignored in more established media outlets and on network news. Biden’s constant gaffes and ramblings have become a source of concern among Republican lawmakers that a declining Biden will serve as president until 2025.
In an effort to limit Biden’s exposure to the press, the White House has limited the number of times Biden is subjected to press inquiries or sit-downs with journalists. As The Daily Wire reported:
President Joe Biden has done just 10 extensive interviews with journalists since taking office, far fewer than either of his last two predecessors.
Biden’s number of interviews is nearly six times less than former President Donald Trump had done by the same time in his presidency. The difference is much more stark compared to former President Barack Obama, who had completed 131 interviews by the same time, according to former CBS White House reporter Mark Knoller.
Biden’s presidential interview count is also far off his pace when he was vice president in the Obama administration. By October 2009, Biden had completed roughly double the number of interviews he had as president. The dearth of interviews reflects the Biden administration’s “bunker mentality” and approach to the media, according to Politico.