A day after President Joe Biden attempted to salvage his embattled reelection bid with a rare solo press conference, many in Boston were unmoved in their political opinions about the state of the presumed race between the incumbent and former President Donald Trump.
The race is statistically tied, according to a new national NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released Friday. The poll shows Biden leading Trump 50% to 48% in a head-to-head matchup, a margin that sits within the poll’s margin of error and could swing 3 percentage points higher or lower.
That tied poll comes despite Biden’s poor debate performance where he struggled to speak in full, coherent sentences. The poll also found that no other popular Democrat outperforms Biden against Trump.
That aligned with what many left-leaning voters told GBH News Friday.
“Incumbents usually win,” said Alli Sponseller, who responded to the question of whether Biden should run again with a nod and the single word: “Probably.”
Sponseller was one of few who would openly discuss the question. Many people walking around Boston’s Government Center MBTA station quickly declined to discuss whether Biden should run for reelection on the record.
Most who did talk, like Sponseller, seemed resigned to accepting the incumbent president as the Democratic nominee despite concerns about his age and cognitive ability.
“The other option would be for someone new to come in who is really charismatic and could win a lot of votes — which, I just don’t know if that’s a viable option. I don’t know anybody who would be that person,” she added.
Drew Caporale, a marketing professional, said that he has concerns about the mental faculties of both presumptive nominees but “generally” favors Biden.
“I think there are legitimate concerns about Trump’s cognitive state that the media isn’t talking about as much as they are about Biden’s. I don’t think Biden’s in the best headspace either, but I also think in his headspace, he won’t accidentally fire nukes off,” Caporale said.
Caporale said he would vote for Vice President Kamala Harris if Biden were to step aside.
The NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll showed Harris leading Trump 50% to 49% in a head-to-head matchup.
“I think [she] makes the most amount of sense from a continuity perspective,” Caporale said. “She’s already been in the administration for the last four years and it wouldn’t be a whole big change from things that are going well.”
Miranda Joyce said she fully supported Biden heading into his first term and so far sees no reason not to support him in November, despite his debate performance.
“I thought Donald Trump’s [debate performance] was worse, so I think it’s kind of a bit of a brouhaha over nothing,” Joyce said, adding that she also thinks journalists should interrogate Trump’s mental fitness.
But she added if it looks unlikely that Biden will win, she “would like to see the strongest candidate.” She pointed to Gavin Newsom, governor of California, and Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, as two potentially attractive contenders.
“I don’t think it’s justification for [Biden] not to run, but if other people think differently, what are you going to do?” she said.
Lee Boddie, a videographer, supported Biden as a single-term president. He said Democrats “probably should have someone else” represent them in the upcoming presidential election.
“I like [Biden], I think he’s been good so far, but I really think we need a younger president,” he said, offering up Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, California Rep. Adam Schiff, and former First Lady Michelle Obama as candidates he’d cast a ballot for.
Sponseller disagreed.
“It would be great if it was a woman, or a woman of color, but unfortunately that hasn’t really worked out,” she said. “It was so bad with Trump that we need someone who can beat Trump — and I think that could be Biden again.”
