The disastrous debate performance by President Joe Biden last week has reportedly caused him to lose significant ground in over a dozen key battleground states and districts, according to polling conducted by the Democrat-affiliated nonprofit, OpenLabs. This development comes as a shock, given that these states were previously thought to be crucial for securing the White House in 2024.
Among the battlegrounds highlighted by OpenLabs are Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. However, it appears that Biden’s popularity is plummeting not only in these swing states but also in those he won convincingly four years ago, such as New Hampshire, Virginia and New Mexico.
If the poll results hold true on November 5th, former President Donald Trump would win a landslide victory in the Electoral College, defeating Biden with an overwhelming score of 335 to 203. In the 14 battlegrounds studied by OpenLabs, including states like Colorado and Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District, Biden lost between 1.7% and 2.4% of his pre-debate popularity to Trump.
The memo also revealed that 40% of those who voted for Biden in the last election now believe he should step down as the Democratic nominee, while 55% of swing voters want him off the ticket entirely. Only 29% of respondents said he should remain on the Democratic ticket.
The polling memo was released on Sunday, causing concern among Democrats as they assessed the impact of Biden’s poor debate performance. One former Democratic congressman, Tim Ryan from Ohio, even took to the pages of Newsweek with a call for the party to nominate Vice President Kamala Harris instead of Biden.
We have to rip the band-aid off!” Ryan tweeted. Too much is at stake. Harris] has significantly grown into her job; she will destroy Trump in debate, highlight choice issue, energize our base, bring back young voters and give us generational change. It’s time.
OpenLabs showed Harris with a slightly higher favorability rating than Biden (41%-38%) and a lower unfavorability rating (52%-60. However, the survey indicated that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg had the highest favorability ratings among potential replacements for Biden.
Despite this growing concern within the Democratic party, the Biden campaign has insisted that he will not be dropping out of the race and has vowed to participate in a second debate against Trump scheduled for September 10th.
