- About one in three Americans says they are not satisfied with President Joe Biden’s mental acuity.
- A considerable majority, 61%, is at least a little to extremely confident in Biden’s cognitive skills.
- Insider research found that Republican and older American voters are more likely to be dissatisfied.
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Although questions about President Joe Biden’s mental aptitude persist throughout the 2020 campaign, most Americans say he is ready for work, while 33% say they are dissatisfied with his mental sharpness, a new survey by Insider found .
Insider interviewed a national sample of 1,154 Americans in conjunction with SurveyMonkey on February 22, with a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
The survey revealed that Biden, 78, is supported by 61% of Americans when it comes to whether he is fit for the job.
The president maintains these numbers despite former President Donald Trump devoting much of his campaign to portraying Biden as senile, with Trump even demanding that Biden take a cognitive test and that he be tested for drugs to improve performance after further debate. strong. against Senator Bernie Sanders.
These Trump attacks inadvertently benefited Biden by lowering expectations for his speeches and presentations in debates, but the president’s age left an opening for less hyperbolic issues to persist.
Those who completed the Insider SurveyMonkey Audience survey were asked: “How confident do you feel about President Biden’s mental sharpness and his ability to do the job of president?”
- 24% said they are “extremely confident”.
- Almost 20% said they are “very confident”.
- 17.7% said they are just “a little confident”.
- 10.8% said “they are not so confident”.
- 22.8% said “they are not at all confident”.
- Almost 5% said they “don’t know”.
Age and party affiliation seem to have impacted people’s responses:
- 31% of respondents over 60 said they “are not at all confident” in Biden’s ability to perform his duties as president.
- Only 12% of those aged between 18 and 29 have the same opinion.
- 50% of those who said they would likely vote for their state’s Republican primaries or caucuses said they “are not at all confident” in Biden’s mental sharpness, the biggest of all the demographics we’ve tracked.
- Nearly 70% of likely Democratic voters in the primary said they were “extremely confident” or “very confident” in Biden’s cognition and ability to do the job.
SurveyMonkey Audience surveys a national sample balanced by age and sex census data. Respondents are encouraged to respond to surveys through charitable contributions. In general, digital searches tend to lean towards people with access to the Internet. SurveyMonkey audiences do not attempt to weight their sample based on race or income. The survey data collected 1,154 respondents on February 22, 2021 with a margin of error of 3 percentage points.