Are Trump and Biden mentally fit? Swing state voters concerned about both, poll finds
Nearly half of voters in six swing states say neither President Donald Trump nor Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden are mentally fit to be president, according to a new poll.
A CNBC-Change Research poll of 4,143 likely voters released Thursday found 51% said Trump is mentally unfit to be president and 52% said the same of Biden.
The poll, taken Friday through Sunday, surveyed voters in Arizona, Florida, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin — states expected to be pivotal in the general election. The survey, with a margin of error of 1.4 percentage points, found Biden leading by 6 points nationally and in every battle ground state.
Voters were more confident about the candidates’ physical fitness: 52% said Trump, who is 74, is physically fit and 54% said the same of Biden, 77. Trump was the oldest person ever elected president to a first term, a record Biden would hold if he emerges victorious in November.
The poll comes as both Biden and Trumphave cast doubt about each other’s mental fitness.
Trump has repeatedly called Biden “Sleepy Joe,” released campaign ads questioning Biden’s mental acuity and suggested Biden is a “Trojan horse” driven by the “radical left.”
In turn, Biden has taken swipes at the president.
“This president talks about cognitive capability,” Biden said during a news conference on June 30. “He doesn’t appear to be cognitively aware of what’s going on.”
Biden added in an August interview on ABC News: “Look at us both. Look at us both, what we say, what we do, what we control, what we know, what kind of shape we’re in.”
In July, Trump challenged Biden to take the cognitive test he says he “aced,” McClatchy News previously reported. The Montreal Cognitive Assessment — which Trump took — is typically used to screen for early dementia or memory loss.
Biden rejected Trump’s test challenge, comparing it to taking a drug test, according to Axios. “That’s like saying, ‘You — before you got on this program you took a test where you’re taking cocaine or not, what do you think? Huh? Are you a junkie?’” he said.
Despite the criticism of Biden’s mental capabilities, the former Vice President has polled better than Trump among older adults.
A Quinnipiac University poll released September 2 showed Biden leading among adults 65 years and older. The poll, which surveyed 1,081 voters nationwide from August 28-31, found 50% of voters 65 and older would vote for Biden, compared to 46% who would vote for Trump. The poll has a margin of error of three percentage points.
If those results among seniors hold true on election day, it would mark a major shift from 2016 election results.
Fifty-three percent of voters ages 65 or older reported casting their ballot for Trump in that election, while then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton received 44% of the vote in that age group, according to the Pew Research Center.
This story was originally published September 10, 2020 at 2:04 PM with the headline "Are Trump and Biden mentally fit? Swing state voters concerned about both, poll finds."