Harry Enten, a senior data reporter at CNN, stated that President Joe Biden’s polling numbers are concerning, suggesting that another Democratic candidate might fare better against former President Donald Trump. During the Thursday debate, Biden’s raspy voice and trailing off raised concerns among Americans about his age and ability to serve another term. Enten mentioned on “CNN News Central” that Biden is significantly behind Trump in the polls post-debate, and he expressed uncertainty about any other Democrat performing worse as the party’s nominee.
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'These Numbers Are Atrocious': CNN's Harry Enten Says He's Not 'Quite Sure' Dems 'Can Do Any Worse ' Than With Biden pic.twitter.com/UvxTNNy6bM
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 2, 2024
“These numbers are atrocious for Joe Biden. That’s the only way you can put it. I guess the good news, when you match him up against Donald Trump, is that he hasn’t lost any ground from where he was back in April. But he was trailing in April by six points and he’s trailing by six points now,” Enten said. “And I just think you have to take back a step and look at where we were four years ago at this point. Joe Biden was leading Donald Trump by nine points. This is just a completely different race, one in which Donald Trump has led basically continuously, at least during 2024, and one in which his lead, if anything, is holding or even getting larger right now, high single-digits.”
“And I think there’s, of course, the big question, is: could another Democrat do better than Joe Biden against Donald Trump? And this new poll says, or at least suggests, that perhaps they could, because take a look here. Yes, Joe Biden is trailing Donald Trump by six percentage points, but look at this. Versus Kamala Harris, the vice president, it’s just a two-point race with no clear leader,” he continued. “So when I look at polls like this and you see the first call for Joe Biden to get out of the race from a member of Congress on the Democratic side, I don’t think polling like this will stop those calls. I would only expect them to get louder if polling like this holds in other surveys.”
Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat, was the first member of Congress to recommend that President Biden withdraw from the 2024 presidential race. Doggett expressed doubt in the president’s ability to defeat Trump following the debate.
“This is a fight for the center of the electorate,” Enten added. “It’s a fight for independents … Donald Trump leads among independents by 10 points when faced off against Joe Biden. But among independents, those voters that, of course, Donald Trump won in 2016 and then lost in 2020 to Joe Biden, you can see that Kamala Harris is actually ahead by three points. She’s doing better in the center of the electorate.”
Democratic major donors allegedly talked about organizing an intervention to convince Biden to withdraw shortly after the debate. Thomas Friedman, a beloved columnist of Biden’s, who contributes to The New York Times, urged him to step down, as did the editorial board of The New York Times.
“Now, of course, Harris is not as well known as Joe Biden. She’s not as well known as Donald Trump either. But if you look at this point, right at this time, what you see is that 22% of voters have no opinion of Kamala Harris,” the data reporter continued. “Either they have no opinion or they’ve never heard of her. Compare that to 8% for Joe Biden, 7% for Donald Trump. So at this point, in my mind, she’s a generic Democrat. As she gets better known, those numbers against Donald Trump, given that Donald Trump is not popular at this point, those numbers can close even more. At this point, looking at this data, I am not really quite sure that Democrats can do any worse than they are doing with Joe Biden at the top of the ticket.”
