Biden Couldn’t Beat Trump. Harris Can.

Polls showed the president’s flaws were fatal. Hers are not.

(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

DOES KAMALA HARRIS HAVE a better shot at winning the presidential election than Joe Biden did?

To answer that question, I’ve looked at every public poll taken since Biden’s debate with Donald Trump on June 27. These polls were taken before Biden withdrew from the race and Harris stepped in, so she may get an additional bounce from her party’s euphoria. But already, the answer in the data is: Yes, she has a better chance. 

The reasons are complicated. Harris hasn’t performed better in matchups against Trump than Biden did. But her favorable ratings are consistently better than Biden’s, and that suggests she has room to grow.

The more significant finding, however, is that Biden’s liabilities are politically fatal. Most voters think his mental and physical incapacity is so bad that it outweighs Trump’s crimes and the danger Trump poses to democracy. For that reason, Biden had virtually no chance to win. Harris has a real chance.

Let’s start with the head-to-head polls. I found 25 post-debate surveys in which both Biden and Harris were tested against Trump in election scenarios. In six of these surveys, Harris did slightly better than Biden when matched up against Trump. In five, she fared no better or worse than Biden. In one, she did slightly better or worse, depending on whether third-party candidates were included.

That’s 12 polls. In the other 13, Biden did better against Trump than Harris did. The average difference between Biden’s and Harris’s performance in these polls was only two percentage points. That’s small, and in any given poll, it wouldn’t be statistically significant. But when most polls tilt that way, it’s a warning that Harris might not start with quite the same base Biden had.

That’s the bad news.

Here’s the good news: Harris’s favorable ratings are consistently better than Biden’s. I found 17 surveys in which respondents were asked whether they viewed Biden and Harris (in separate questions) favorably or unfavorably. In every one of these surveys, more respondents viewed Biden unfavorably than viewed Harris unfavorably. And in 15 of the 17 polls, Harris’s net favorable rating (the percentage of respondents who viewed her favorably, minus the percentage who viewed her unfavorably) was better than Biden’s. The average difference between Harris’s net rating and Biden’s in these polls was more than four points.

That means Harris probably has a better shot at broadening her support than Biden had. 

One poll, taken by Ipsos for the Washington Post, posed this question directly. It asked respondents who said they weren’t voting for Biden, “Would you consider voting for Biden, or would you definitely not vote for him?” Five percent of these non-supporters said they’d consider voting for him in a matchup against Trump. For Harris, the number of non-supporters who said they’d still consider voting for her against Trump was seven percent. It’s a small difference, but it’s a start.

How will the election turn out? I wish I could tell you. But I can answer one question with certainty: Are Democrats better off nominating Harris than Biden? Absolutely.

The reason is simple: Biden’s infirmities weren’t going away. And too many voters think those infirmities are worse than anything you can say about Trump.

In survey after survey, most voters say Biden can no longer do the job. Fifty-eight percent say he’s not “mentally and physically fit to serve another 4 years.” Fifty-nine percent say he’s not “fit to serve another term as president.” Sixty-four percent say he lacks “the mental fitness to serve as president.” Sixty-nine percent say he’s “too old to work in government.” And 63 percent say his age and his mental difficulties “are putting U.S. national security at risk.”

To me, it’s a no-brainer that Trump’s sociopathy is way more dangerous than Biden’s verbal or physical struggles are. But apparently, most voters don’t share that view. Here are some recent findings:

In two polls—one by Data For Progress, the other by Echelon Insights—likely voters were asked to weigh Biden’s age and mental condition against “Trump’s criminal convictions” or his “criminal charges and threats to democracy.” In both polls, most respondents said they were more concerned about Biden’s condition than about Trump’s crimes or threats.

In an NBC News poll, 50 percent of voters said Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts, combined with his “additional felony charges, including related to attempts to overturn the 2020 election,” gave them “major concerns” about him as a candidate. But in the same poll, significantly more voters—65 percent—said “Joe Biden not having the necessary mental and physical health to be president for a second term” gave them major concerns.

In a New York Times/Siena College poll, 54 percent of voters said Trump had committed “serious federal crimes,” and 51 percent said his actions after the 2020 election “threatened American democracy.” But 74 percent said Biden was “too old to be an effective president,” and that concern seemed to override worries about Trump. Fifty-six percent of voters in the survey said returning Trump to the presidency was “a risky choice for the country,” not a safe one. But an even higher share, 63 percent, said re-electing Biden was a risky choice.

In a Bendixen & Amandi International poll of likely voters, 53 percent agreed that “if Donald Trump wins the election and becomes president again,” “he and his administration will represent a grave danger to democracy continuing in the United States.” But 61 percent said Biden lacked “the mental capacity and physical stamina to serve another 4 years.”

The poll challenged respondents to weigh these two concerns against one another. It asked them whether they would vote for Biden anyway—“if he were cognitively diminished because of his advanced age and unlikely to complete another 4-year term as president”—in order to stop “Donald Trump from winning the election and becoming president again.” Only 44 percent said they would choose that course. Forty-eight percent said they wouldn’t.

As Harris emerges from Biden’s shadow, she’ll run into problems of her own. In the Data For Progress survey, she polled marginally worse than Biden on honesty and on having good plans to solve problems. But she scored much better than Biden on traits that concern most voters about him. On the question of strength, Biden trailed Trump by 20 points; Harris trailed by only 11. And on being “fit to run the country,” Biden trailed Trump by 14 points; Harris trailed by only 3.

For the next three months, Republicans will pummel Harris. They’ll say she’s incompetent, soft on crime, and weak on the border. She may end up losing. But if you think Democrats would have been better off with Biden, you’re not appreciating how doomed he was.

Biden has been a good president. He still makes good decisions when he has time to think. But the debate exposed his cognitive decline. Voters saw it, and most of them—whether you agree with them or not—think his impairment is a bigger problem than Trump’s crimes and vices. To refocus the election on Trump, Democrats have to offer a candidate who meets the basic test of looking like she’s up to the job. In Harris, they have that candidate.