This number should really worry Joe Biden

Mental fitness enters the chat.

(President Joe Biden)

Days after Joe Biden formally announced he was running again for president in 2024, he was asked about his age and mental fitness for the job.

“[The public is] going to see a race, and they’re going to judge whether or not I have it or don’t have it,” Biden responded. “I respect them taking a hard look at it. I take a hard look at it as well — I took a hard look at it before I decided to run, and I feel good, I feel excited about the prospects.”

He may be the only one.

There’s a shocking new poll out from NPR/PBS/Marist College that suggests that Biden is going to have to do a lot more convincing if he wants people to believe he is mentally up to a second term as president.

More than 6 in 10 (62%) of voters said that Biden’s mental fitness is a real concern for them as they consider his reelection bid. Just 36% say it is simply a campaign strategy used by his opponents.

Of those who say Biden’s mental fitness is an issue, more than 1 in 3 Democrats (36%) feel that way as do a whopping 69% of independent voters. 69%!!!

This paragraph in particular — from NPR’s writeup of the poll — set off alarm bells for me about Biden and the age issue:

Several key Democratic and swing groups saw Biden's mental fitness as a real concern, including those 45 or younger (69%), GenZ/Millennials (67%), men (66%), those without college degrees (66%), non-whites (64%) and those who live in the suburbs (63%).

Worth noting here: 51% of voters said they had real concerns about Donald Trump’s mental fitness. Among independents, less than half (48%), however, harbored those concerns.

While Trump’s numbers aren’t great on the question, Biden’s leap off the page as a problem. Especially when combined with other data that’s out there.

Consider an NBC poll from last month that showed 70%(!) of voters did not want Biden to run again. That number included a majority — 51% — of Democrats.

When asked why they would prefer Biden not seek a second term, almost half (48%) said his advanced age — Biden is 80 — was a “major” factor in their thinking. Another 21% said it was a “minor” factor while 29% said it wasn’t a factor at all.

There’s lots of data that show something similar: a) a majority of the country doesn’t want Biden to run again and b) the main reason for that are worries about his age.

The Biden team is, of course, aware of this. And seem to have settled on the idea that the best way to deal with the problem is to, largely, ignore it.

Biden will — as I noted above — answer the age question when it’s asked of him but he always speaks in vague generalities. “I feel good, I feel excited about the prospects,” is not exactly a deep dive on his health.

The operating assumption in Biden world then appears to be that this issue will go away as voters see and hear more of Biden on the campaign trail. That he will show — as he did in his State of the Union address earlier this year — that he is a) with it and b) more than capable of doing the job as president.

I am not so sure about that. Remember that during the 2020 campaign, Biden — because of the Covid-19 pandemic — rarely campaigned in any traditional way. While the Republican talking point that Biden ran for president from his basement isn’t fair, it’s without doubt true that he wasn’t anything close to an active presence on the campaign trail.

And, we know from New York Times reporting, that Biden has slowed down in the last few years. Here’s the key bit from their reporting:

Mr. Biden looks older than just a few years ago, a political liability that cannot be solved by traditional White House stratagems like staff shake-ups or new communications plans. His energy level, while impressive for a man of his age, is not what it was, and some aides quietly watch out for him. He often shuffles when he walks, and aides worry he will trip on a wire. He stumbles over words during public events, and they hold their breath to see if he makes it to the end without a gaffe.

(Sidebar: Biden’s defenders explain away his verbal stumbles as the lingering effects of a childhood stutter — and note that Biden has always had verbal struggles having nothing to do with his age.)

Count me in the camp that thinks Biden will have to address his age in a more fulsome way at some point in the campaign. This New York Times op-ed — from just before Biden officially announced — is in keeping with my view on things:

But candidates shouldn’t pretend, as Mr. Biden often does, that advanced age isn’t an issue. Mr. Biden is 80 now, the oldest American to serve as president, and even supporters, including the political strategist David Axelrod, have expressed deep worries that his age will be both a political liability in 2024 and a barrier to a successful second term. If Mr. Biden runs again, as he recently said he intends to, questions will persist about his age until he does more to assure voters that he is up to the job.

None of the conversation about Biden’s age exists in a vacuum either. Republicans are already making a major issue out of it.

Donald Trump suggests — on an almost-daily basis — that Biden is too out of it to be president. And he recently ran an ad in which Biden is shown needing help getting his suit jacket on, tripping up the stairs of Air Force One and falling off his bike. The message there is pretty in your face: Biden is failing.

Former U.N. Secretary Nikki Haley has gone even further — suggesting that Biden won’t live through a 2nd term. “I think that we can all be very clear and say with a matter of fact that if you vote for Joe Biden you really are counting on a President Harris, because the idea that he would make it until 86 years old is not something that I think is likely,” said Haley.

That drumbeat is only get louder the closer we get to the actual election and, by the way, the older Biden gets. (He will turn 81 this November.)

So, what do you do if you’re Biden?

I would schedule a speech in the not-too-distant future — and signal to everyone it’s going to be about your age.

Build the speech around these lines from an interview Biden gave to MSNBC:

“I have acquired a hell of a lot of wisdom and know more than the vast majority of people…I’m more experienced than anybody that’s ever run for the office. And I think I've proven myself to be honorable, as well as also effective.”

Make the argument about experience and effectiveness. Talk about how the wisdom he has acquired over many years in seats of power helped him accomplish major things in his first term.

And, yes, acknowledge that he has slowed down some. Every one can see it so why not try to own it? Something like:

Yeah, I take a little longer to get places now — but I always make it. And I pledge to you that no matter how long it takes or how hard it is, I will always keep fighting for the American people.

What’s VERY clear at this point is that voters have real and lasting doubts about whether Biden is equipped to do the job he is running for in 2024. And that Biden simply ignoring that fact isn’t going to make those concerns disappear.

In short: It’s time for a change in strategy.