![]() ![]() A similar 62 percent say Biden is not in good enough physical health to be effective.” Numbers for the soon-to-be 77-year-old Trump are materially better. It’s one reason why that new Washington Post-ABC poll found that: “Today, 63 percent say he does not have the mental sharpness to serve effectively as president, up from 43 percent in 2020 and 54 percent a year ago. Biden may be only four years older than Donald Trump, but as much as any verbal glitch on Biden’s part, it defines him as an unequivocal member of the Really Old. ![]() It’s the first digit of Biden’s age, and one that carries outsized significance. Still, Democrats have reason to worry that 2024 might be different. Tom Eagleton was forced off the 1972 Democratic ticket after reports of his past mental health issues emerged - it’s hard to measure its impact when George McGovern ended up losing 49 states. Barack Obama.” However, two years later, a study from the University of California, Irvine, found almost no impact on the vote.Įven where the vice-presidential choice proved disastrous - when Sen. The study cited a Newsweek column noting her performance “sent wavering Democrats, independents and moderate Republicans scurrying to Sen. So, does this mean that running mates have no impact on the presidential vote? It’s a question that armies of political scientists have tried to answer, with conflicting results.Ī 2010 Stanford study concluded that Sarah Palin, whose initially impressive debut as John McCain’s running mate collapsed in a fog of confusion and historical ignorance, cost the ticket more than two million votes. But the George Bush-Dan Quayle ticket won an 8-point popular vote plurality and 426 electoral votes. Nixon and Agnew won, albeit narrowly.ĭan Quayle’s stumbling entrance on the national stage in 1988, and his deer-in-the-headlights performance during the vice-presidential debate - “Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy,” opponent Lloyd Bentsen jabbed - are vividly remembered by the political class. “It would be funny if it weren’t so serious,” the ad concluded. In 1968, when Nixon running mate Spiro Agnew began inserting his foot in his mouth on repeated occasions, Hubert Humphrey’s campaign aired a TV ad where the words “Agnew for Vice President?” were shown accompanied by hysterical laughter. It was hardly the last time a campaign sought to make an issue of a vice presidential candidate’s fitness for office. The Democrats’ anti-Nixon focus was so effective in 1956 that the Eisenhower-Nixon ticket was held to a mere 457 electoral votes and 15-point popular vote win. Nixon’s record.” (Four years earlier, allegations he had a “slush fund” of donor money had threatened Nixon’s place on the ticket until a nationally televised speech saved his career and made “Checkers” the most famous political dog since FDR’s Fala.) It’s why Democratic National Committee Chair Paul Butler said the campaign would “focus our guns” on Nixon because “the American people have a sense of sportsmanship and decency that does not seem to fit in with Mr. Eisenhower had pointed out, even before his heart attack, that no president ever had lived to be 70 while still in the White House.” (That’s right, the idea of a 66-year-old president was a bit unsettling back then.)įor Democrats, that meant the polarizing vice president, Richard Nixon, was a more tempting target than the grandfatherly general who won World War II. After he announced his reelection bid, the New York Times noted: “Because of his age - he will be 66 in October during the campaign - Mr. President Dwight Eisenhower had suffered a serious heart attack in 1955, and for months it was unclear if he’d seek a second term the following year. You can find an example - one that shows how dramatically the question of age has shifted - by going back to 1956. There are reasons to doubt the Biden campaign will be able to fend off such an assault, but it can look to at least one comforting fact: Throughout American history, attempts to make a running mate the target of a presidential election have usually been ineffective. Particularly if the GOP sees Harris as a weaker figure than Biden, the attacks on her as a potential president will only increase. There’s no question the vice president will face serious scrutiny in 2024, and fairly or not, she’s struggled to win over Washington and much of the public. ![]() It’s the specter of Biden’s age - the actuarial data that looms over his candidacy - that throws the “Harris” question onto center stage. ![]()
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