1) Independents/undecideds(with the latter being a pretty small number anyways) believe Biden should drop out. And it’s not really close. Given this, it’s pretty darn unlikely that Biden is going to do well with those voters. And since he is losing the race at the present time, and isn’t going to do well with these independent and undecided voters, well……..
I mean this is common sense. For Biden to win, like he did in 2020, he’s going to have to find a way to clearly improve his standing from where he is in the race now. But clearly he’s going to *lose* ground from now to election day in this group of voters. Because people who believe Biden should drop out of the race aren’t likely to vote for him.
2) The fact that Biden won’t submit to neuropsych testing(or ‘cognitive testing’ as everyone in the media is misleadingly calling it) is going to hurt him.
Whether or not we believe that Biden has any cognitive deficits or not, there is a non-trivial number of moderate and independent voters who would normally be ‘gettable’ that do believe there are valid concerns about Biden’s cognitive state. The fact that he isn’t willing to do this is going to be a big negative. As the election gets closer, the other side is going to hammer this point home and it’s going to be effective.
And despite all the attempts at deflection and blurring the lines from Jean-Pierre and the Biden team and Biden supporters, people understand the difference between an annual physical and neuropsych testing/cognitive testing. They understand that an annual physical whose ‘neurological exam’ component tests for things like obvious focal neurological deficits is not the same as having neuropsych testing/’cognitive testing’. And if the Biden continues to put forth this “he’s had a full neurological exam already so what more do you want” argument, people are going to see through it and it’s going to turn off even more typically ‘gettable’ voters.
Moderate and independent voters(ie the kind Biden needs to win at this point) are going to use common sense and say “so if he really is ok from a cognitive standpoint, why not just do this cognitive testing”?
3) I’m not even sure if Biden could beat Trump if there weren’t concerns about his cognitive state. Yes Biden won the popular vote by 4.5%, which is a nontrivial amount(7 million votes). But Biden’s actual margin of victory due to the electoral college wasn’t 4.5%. Rather Biden probably needed to win the popular vote(assuming the state ratios shifted equally with popular vote changes) by 2-2.5% to win the election(remember Hillary won the popular vote by 2.1% and lost the election to trump). So looking at it that way, Biden’s overall margin in terms of effectively winning the election was about 2%. Now 2% in a nation of that many votes is *not* an insigicant margin, however consider the following:
-Biden’s approval ratings are much worse now than 2020
-Trump, despite being a very flawed candidate with massive negatives, is experiencing something of a ‘misguided nostalgia’ about his presidency. In fact when voters are asked whether they think things were better under trump or biden’s term, Trump is clearly winning.(again Im not saying that is the right perception, but thats what people’s perceptions are unfortunately)
-The immigration issue is a *major* loser for Biden right now. Much much much moreso than 2020. Biden is going to lose a ton of votes to Trump just on this issue alone compared to the 2020 tally
-Regardless of what numbers and trends you want to believe on the inflation issue, the perception is that inflation is high now and was much lower during the Trump term. Fair or not(and I think it’s unfair), BIden is going to lose votes on this issue too relative to 2020
So yes some of the above points overlap with each other(ie Biden’s approval ratings are so low partly because he is unfairly blamed for inflation for example), but still the bottom line is that even without concerns about his cognitive state this was going to be a very uphill battle for Biden. Just because keeping it to less than a 2-3 point swing from the 2020 baseline with the above issues going against him would be very difficult.
But now ON TOP of that challenge throw in the cognitive concerns too? It’s too much. It’s just not doable. The numbers for Biden just don’t make sense.
He’s losing now and I don’t see how he can make up the ground(even if one believes the closer polls and that the current margin is fairly small). It’s very unlikely Biden can keep this thing as close as it is now until election day; expecting him to not only not lose more ground but actually gain significant ground considering all the above? Just not possible……
Again none of this speaks to what ‘should’ happen, or who ‘should’ win. Or how these issues ‘should’ be perceived.
It looks like the dems at this point may very well stick with Joe Biden. He’s going to lose if they do.