86% of Americans believe Joe Biden too old for a second term as president. The ABC-Ipsos poll freezes the president at the end of an already dark week which saw the issue of Biden’s advanced age dominate the public debate. As if that wasn’t enough, another Financial Times survey highlights how Donald Trump he is considered more reliable than the current occupant of the White House on the economy: the former president has an 11 point advantage (42% against 31%) over Biden on the economic front. Even if promoted on the economy, Trump does not escape voters’ judgment on his age: 62% also consider him too old for the presidency. The latest ABC survey confirms a trend that has already emerged in recent months and to which the Republican and Democratic parties did not want to pay attention.
In fact, for a year now, Americans have been reiterating that they do not want a new challenge between Biden and Trump: Voters would like an alternative and a change of pace that archives the gerontocracy of American politics and launches a new class. Nikki Haley’s electoral campaign is playing precisely on this desire for innovation: the former ambassador to the UN has been repeating for months that there is a need for a turning point and a new political leadership. “Joe Biden will not be the candidate” of the Democrats for the White House, she said in one of her last appearances in South Carolina, the state that will vote for the primaries at the end of February and in which Haley is at stake, or almost everything. The former governor is convinced that liberals will ultimately choose another candidate, which she should think about—is the suggestion—even the Republican Party, which has tied itself hand and foot to Trump. Haley’s attacks against the former president are incessant, especially after Trump joked about the absence of the husband of the former ambassador to the UN, a soldier currently on a mission abroad.
“Anyone who disrespects our military shouldn’t have a license, let alone the presidency,” Haley replied harshly. Jill Biden is also on the field in defense of her husband. The First Lady rejects the “inaccurate and political” attacks contained in special prosecutor Robert Hur’s report against the president. «Joe is 81 years old, it’s true, but at his age he does in an hour what most people do in a day. His age, together with his experience, are a great asset and he demonstrates it every day”, says the first lady, explaining that she does not know what Hur’s objective was and that she cannot imagine that “someone tries to use Hur’s death our son to score political points.”