Poll: More Dems Concerned About Biden's Mental Missteps President Joe Biden (Getty Images)
By Fran Beyer | Monday, 10 October 2022 12:55 PM EDT
Democrats are beginning to have concerns about President Joe Biden's latest mental missteps, a new poll shows.
According to an Issues & Insights/TIPP survey, worries about the nearly 79-year-old commander-in-chief's mental state have jumped from 59% to 64% in just two months.
Most of the increase has come from Democrats, the pollster pointed out.
"Virtually all of October's gain came from Democrats, who went from just 39% expressing 'concern' over Biden's mental health in August, a high number in itself, to 52% in the latest poll," Issues & Insights editor Terry Jones wrote. "Let that sink in: A majority of Democrats now also think Biden possibly has mental health issues."
An early August survey showed 59% overall said they were worried about Biden's mental health. The responses included 82% of Republicans, 56% of independents, and 39% of Democrats.
The latest poll was taken from Oct.5-7, with the same question asked — but the overall number grew to 64%. The latest survey has a margin of error of 2.8 percentage points.
"Recent video snippets show Biden wandering off stage, apparently lost, after speaking briefly; forgetting the name of the Declaration of Independence, the nation's founding document; not remembering that a congresswoman he was honoring at a ceremony was in fact dead, asking Where's Jackie (Walorski)?'; invoking the possibility of nuclear 'Armageddon' after Vladimir Putin's military suffered setbacks in Ukraine; and so on," Jones wrote.
The issue has been already noted by one medical professional.
"The best way to approach Biden's apparent multiple memory lapses and periods of disorientation is not to speculate based on video clips alone but to demand full disclosure and transparency, especially of a president almost 80 years old with a significant medical history," Dr. Marc Siegel, a professor of medicine at New York University, wrote in a recent commentary.
"If he decides to run again, I'm on record demanding full health transparency of all candidates for higher office, tracing back to when John McCain was 71 and running for president in 2008," Siegal added. "I called it 'the McCain Protocol' in 2016 when both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were over 70 and running for president."
Jones wrote the new survey suggests "it may be time for Biden to undergo a mental competency test, as former President Donald Trump did — and passed."