Henry Olsen: American pollster says Joe Biden is getting less and less likely to stay in the race for President

There's growing calls from prospective voters for Joe Biden to step down from the ongoing presidential race.

Biden has stayed adamant that he's not dropping out, and he's told campaign staff he's in to the end.

American pollster Henry Olsen says public support for Biden is decreasing fast.

"Because of the electoral college balance towards Trump, Biden has to win by 2 points or more to have any chance of winning the electoral college. Being down by 6 when he's this well known and Trump is this well-known, this late in the campaign - it's fatal."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The name you trust to get the answers you need
and a.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Due to see Allen Drive with on New Zealand Let's
Get Connected and news Talk ZBB. We're going to speak
to a developer about it. Half the five o'clock stand
by for that now. A defiant Joe Biden has ruled
out any talk of dropping out of the presidential race
after his troubling debate performance. In response to a New
York Times story that suggested he's weighing up his options,

(00:25):
the president stated that no one is pushing him out
and he's not leaving now. Henry Olsen is an American polster.

Speaker 3 (00:31):
Hi, Henry, Hello today. Is it looking more or less
likely to you that he stays in the race.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
I think he is less likely to stay in the
race than he was even twenty four hours ago. Democrats
are beginning to call publicly for him to step down.
Paul's are sinking fast, and while he remains stadfast in
his public statements, he's politically aware enough to know the
sand is shifting out from under him.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
So that the poll that you're talking about, I am
assuming is the Wall Street Journal that I mean, it
only has the lead that Trump has got widening out
to six percent.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
I would have expected more, wouldn't you.

Speaker 1 (01:07):
Well, we have two things working to prevent that. One
is the extreme partisanship we have in the United States
right now, and the second is his alternative is Donald Trump.
That there'll be plenty of people who will hear that
poll and say, yes, Joe Biden is too well to
run for office, but Donald Trump is, and then talk
about why they can't vote for Trump. Eighty percent of

(01:28):
the people in that poll said that Joe Biden was
too old to run for president. And that gives you
an idea of how many people are swallowing their reservations
about President Biden because they're either died in the world Democrats,
or they just can't stomach Donald Trump.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Do the polls fall further from him.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
I think they do a little bit. There's only so
far that a Democrat can fall in this current circumstance.
But the fact is, because of the electoral college balance
towards Trump, Biden has to win by two points or
more to have any chance of winning the electoral college.
Being down by six when he's this well known and

(02:08):
Trump is this well known this late in the campaign,
it's almost fatal and most serious Democrats know it.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
Okay, So Henry, how does this play out?

Speaker 2 (02:15):
What's going to be the thing that finally tips it
out of Biden's favor and he's got to get out
of the race.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
I think what's going to have to happen is some
senior Democrats are going to have to either publicly call
for his removal or his removing himself he can't be
absent himself, or they have to say in guarded diplomatic
language that that's the case, but they're not actually calling

(02:42):
for it. There are some Democrats who are saying that
he's going to lose under the current circumstance, and they're
not calling for his removal, but everybody inside the Beltway
knows what that means.

Speaker 3 (02:51):
And then who replaces him as a Kamla Harris.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
That's the betting right now is that that's the easiest
choice for the Democrats and it's the one that rankles
the fewest intra party constituencies. The problem is Kamala Harris
has her own problem. She's not known as a decisive communicator.
Her opinion ratings, her favorability ratings are as bad as

(03:15):
Joe Biden's, and she's tied to an unpopular administration, so
that may be the easier course for them, but that
doesn't mean it's the better course for them. But compared
to an eighty one year old man who can't complete
a sentence or paragraph under pressure, that may be their
least bad option.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
Yeah, this is a very good point. Hey, listen, Henry,
Thank you. I always appreciate you, Tom Henry Elson, American POLSTERA.
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