- Election Day 2020 is going to be the culmination of a close and hard-fought race between Donald Trump and Joe Biden — and the results may hinge in part on how good a job each man does painting the other one as unfit for the job.
- Respondents to a new poll, however, think both Trump and Biden are too old and mentally unfit for the demands of the presidency.
- Why that poll result is especially concern is that the respondents came from six battleground states that will be critical in the 2020 presidential election.
Election Day 2020 is shaping up to be among the most contentious, and possibly even the closest, clashes between two presidential candidates in recent memory, with the outcome of the race hingeing in part on how good a job each man does painting the other one as unfit for the office.
At various points on the stump so far, President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden have lobbed insults at each other, attacked each other as mentally unfit for the job, and hurled zingers at each other claiming their opponent is too old to effectively serve as the leader of the free world. Voters will have the final word on November 3, but they’re kind of already making their feelings known about this back-and-forth now, too. And based on the results of a new poll, it seems that most voters would rather have a younger candidate at the top of both tickets, for a start.
In fact, respondents to a new CNBC/Change Research poll said they don’t consider either Trump or Biden to be “mentally fit” for the presidency.
These results come from voters in six battleground states, including Michigan, Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina. Among the results, per CNBC:
- 55% of likely national voters, and 51% of likely battleground voters, say Trump is mentally unfit to be President.
- 52% of likely national and battleground voters say Biden is mentally unfit to be President.
- Regarding physical fitness, the news is a little better on that front. 51% of likely national voters and 52% of likely voters in the battleground states say Trump is physically fit to be President, while 57% of likely national voters and 54% of likely battleground voters say Biden is physically fit to be President.
Beyond the question of fitness and mental ability, there are also some other striking findings in this poll that could foreshadow more of a tightening up of the race ahead of November. For example, battleground voters showed an even 50-50 split in this poll over whether Trump or Biden will do a better job of bringing the US out of the pandemic-induced doldrums it’s in right now.
However, a slight majority of battleground voters (some 52% in this poll) think Trump hasn’t done enough to help working Americans during the country’s current challenging economic climate.
