(CBS News) For months before the first debate, the nation’s voters repeatedly expressed doubts over whether President Biden had the cognitive health enough to serve.
Today, those doubts have grown even more: now at nearly three-quarters of the electorate, and now including many within his own party.
And today, after the debate with former President Trump, an increased number of voters, including many Democrats, don’t think Mr. Biden should be running for president at all. Nearly half his party doesn’t think he should now be the nominee.
(Trump, for his part, does better, but still only gets half the electorate thinking he has the cognitive health to serve.)
The move came across the partisan board, but it includes a double-digit movement among Democrats, and movement among independents.
Given that, today nearly three in four voters also don’t think Mr. Biden should be running for president in the first place. That’s a higher-percentage sentiment than in February, when almost two-thirds said he should not run.
Most voters who say he shouldn’t run say it’s both about his campaigning and his effectiveness in office, along with his age.
Trump, by contrast, finds a wide view among Republicans that he should be running.
That comes as voters widely believe that in the debate, Trump presented his ideas more clearly, appeared more presidential, inspired more confidence, explained his policies better and —quite simply — won the debate.
This is the case, despite the fact that voters overall think Trump was not as truthful.
And it’s relative, of course. There are plenty of voters who think neither candidate did well.
