A leaked memo published on Tuesday claims internal polling data shows President Joe Biden was down by more than 7 percent in Pennsylvania, and at risk of losing Virginia and other swing states, following his poor debate performance against former President Donald Trump last week.
The memo, which claims to contain the contents of a poll completed within 72-hours of the presidential debate, was leaked to Puck News, which reported it was distributed by OpenLabs, a progressive nonprofit that conducts “polling and message-testing” for Democratic groups including a nonprofit associated with “the preferred Super PAC for Biden’s reelection campaign.”
The 14-page OpenLabs memo explains in its key findings that Biden’s post-debate favorability drop was the president’s most dramatic since the deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
Describing Pennsylvania as “the state that now represents the tipping point,” OpenLabs claimed the polling found Trump is now ahead by 7.3 percent in the Keystone State. Biden was declared the winner in Pennsylvania by more than 80,000 votes in 2020.
OpenLabs also claimed Biden faces tough reelection odds in Virginia, New Hampshire, and New Mexico.
“At this moment post-debate, POTUS trails in New Hampshire and is narrowly behind in Virginia and New Mexico,” the memo warned Democrats.
According to the memo, the pollsters found Biden was ahead 1.5 percent in Virginia prior to the debate. After the debate, they found that Trump led Biden by 0.6 percent, meaning that the men remained statistically tied.
The memo additionally claimed that 40 percent of voters who chose Biden over Trump in 2020 now say the 81-year-old president “should end his campaign,” while 45 percent want Biden to remain in the race.
According to the OpenLabs memo, pollsters found that 69 percent of voters are concerned about whether Biden’s age impacts his ability to perform his duties as president. Just 15 percent of respondents said they were not at all concerned about Biden’s age.
OpenLabs also claimed in its memo that at least four other candidates outperform Biden in hypothetical races against Trump, with Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer all purportedly outperforming the president.
However, the memo explains pollsters made adjustments to the data to account for additional name recognition the Democrats would receive as the party’s presidential nominee. They reported Buttigieg and Whitmer saw “significant improvement” from this data manipulation, while neither Harris nor Newsom saw meaningful increases in their polling.
While U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) stated on Monday that calls for Biden to drop out of the presidential race are mostly coming from the news media, Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX-37) became the first sitting congressman to call for Biden to step aside in favor of another candidate. Also, on Wednesday, Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ-07) joined in calling for Biden to step aside.
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Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Pennsylvania Daily Star and The Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Joe Biden” by President Joe Biden. Background Photo “Voting Booths” by Tim Evanson. CC BY-SA 2.0.
