Pollster Nate Silver on Thursday called for President Joe Biden to contemplate dropping out of the presidential race if it appears in August that he may lose the election.
Former President Donald Trump’s lead against Biden increases among likely voters in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and North Carolina when independent Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and other third-party candidates are on the ballot, according to a Thursday poll by The Cook Political Report/BSG/GS Strategy Group. Silver said Biden must contemplate dropping out if circumstances do not change by August, which is when the Democratic National Convention is scheduled to take place in Chicago.
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“If Biden is still struggling in August he needs to consider stepping aside,” Silver posted on X. “It’s not a great situation for Ds either way, but you have to do due diligence on the question. It’s an important election, obviously. It shouldn’t be taboo to talk about.”
Biden recently proposed two presidential debates with Trump, suggesting a list of guardrails including no live audience and having microphones shut off when it is not the candidate’s turn to speak. Trump accepted both debates, which are slated for June and September.
Silver said on a Thursday episode of his podcast “Risky Business” that it is a “bad sign” Biden only wants to do two debates.
“Usually when you are behind in an election, and Biden is behind right now in the large majority of swing state polls, you want more uncertainty,” Silver said. “You want more variance. Meaning that you should want more debates because they add more volatility to the election. And instead, Biden wants fewer. That to me is a really, really, really, really bad sign for his campaign.”
Biden has experienced multiple protest votes in the Democratic primaries in part because of his handling of Israel’s war with terrorist group Hamas.
“Everyone’s saying that Donald Trump’s doing weak, weak, weak,” CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten asserted on Thursday. “It‘s actually Joe Biden in my mind in the primaries, that’s doing weak, weak, weak at least relative to history because right now he’s getting 87% of that primary vote for an incumbent. But that’s actually the lowest … for any candidate since George H.W. Bush back in 1992 when Pat Buchanan challenged him, and of course, we all remember, at least I remember, that George H.W. Bush lost reelection in the fall to Bill Clinton.”
