Americans were worried about Biden's age long before the debate

At 81, President Joe Biden's age has long been known to be one of his biggest weaknesses in his reelection campaign. But a dismal debate performance last month has sent the Democratic Party into a tailspin as it grapples with the question of whether that weakness may be fatal to the campaign — and if another candidate might be the better option.

When we look at the polls, though, the debate didn't suddenly thrust Biden's age into the spotlight for most Americans the way it seemingly did for Democratic Party elites. Though polls of the presidential election have moved toward former President Donald Trump, answers to specific questions about Biden's age haven't changed much. But that's not because Americans viewed Biden's debate performance more kindly — it's because most Americans already thought Biden was too old and seem to have reached somewhat of a ceiling with those concerns.

One way to gauge this is to look at multiple polls from a pollster that has repeatedly fielded the same question and compare the results over time. YouGov and The Economist have been asking Americans repeatedly over the last year how Biden's age might affect his ability to perform as president if he is reelected, and they found that, while Americans did get slightly more concerned about it after the debate, respondents (including Democrats) were already uncertain about Biden's abilities:

When asked last September how much of an effect they thought Biden's health and age would have on his ability to fulfill his duties as president if reelected, 57 percent of Americans said his age would "severely limit" his ability. Right after the debate, that number was 61 percent. A significant share of Democrats, too, have long held concerns about the president's age and his ability to do the job. In September, 25 percent of Democrats said Biden's age would severely limit his abilities in his second term, while 30 percent said so immediately after the debate (and 27 percent in a more recent poll).

Other questions about Biden's age have yielded a similar pattern in polls. Since last year, YouGov and Yahoo News have asked Americans how big a problem they think Biden's age is when it comes to his fitness for the presidency. Here again we see some increase in the share of respondents who said that it was a "big" problem after the debate, but it wasn't significantly higher than the share who said so last fall:

In a poll fielded between June 28 and July 1 (the weekend following the debate), 56 percent of Americans and 28 percent of Democrats said Biden's age was a big problem. But that's not so far off from a November poll in which 25 percent of Democrats and an identical 56 percent of overall respondents said the president's age was a big problem.

The picture these polls start to paint is not that the debate performance didn't hurt Biden, but just how big of a problem his age and its perceived effects on his ability to do the job already were. Dozens of polls have asked Americans different versions of the "Biden age" question over the last year, and they've consistently found that a majority of Americans, and a sizable share of Democrats, are concerned about the president's advanced age.

A poll from AP-NORC last August asked Americans whether they thought Biden was "too old to effectively serve another four-year term," and 77 percent answered yes, including a majority (69 percent) of Democrats. The pollster further asked which words came to mind when thinking about the president, and words associated with age (such as "old," "aging," and "elderly") made up the most common response. In January, 74 percent of Americans and 60 percent of Democrats somewhat or strongly agreed that Biden was "too old to work in government," according to polling from Ipsos and Reuters. In April, 81 percent of Americans said Biden was "too old for a second term," not far off from the 85 percent who said so after the debate, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll.

The debate isn't the first time Biden's age became the political talking point du jour. Last summer, Biden tripped on a sandbag on stage at the Air Force Academy graduation ceremony, and earlier this year, the special counsel investigating the president's mishandling of classified documents issued a report on the decision not to file charges, calling Biden a "well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory" who had "diminished faculties in advancing age."

Events like these have all contributed to the cumulative rise in concern over Biden's ability to serve a second term. Over the course of his time in office, the share of voters who described Biden as "mentally sharp" has dropped by about half, according to polling from Pew Research Center: Just 24 percent described the president as mentally sharp in a poll earlier this month, compared with 46 percent who did so in October 2020.

Of course, Americans aren't exactly thrilled with Trump's age, either; at 78 years and seven months, he would just edge out Biden to become the oldest president ever sworn into office if he wins the election (Biden was 78 years and two months old). In each of the polls cited above, a sizable share of Americans also say Trump is too old, but it's significantly fewer than the number who say so about Biden. It's just not as big of an issue for the former president, who, despite spewing a fountain of lies on the debate stage, appeared lively and alert.

If there is a silver lining here for Biden, it's that voters can be concerned about his age and yet still support him — in part because they have different levels of tolerance for those concerns. For example, 69 percent of registered voters said they somewhat or strongly agreed that Biden was "too old to be an effective president" in a New York Times/Siena College poll after the debate, including 55 percent of those who chose Biden in a head-to-head with Trump. But when asked to expand, 40 percent of voters who chose Biden and said he was too old said that his age "makes him ineffective, but he is still able to handle the job of president well enough," compared to 14 percent who said his age was "such a problem that he is not capable of handling the job of president."

Of course, there are other voters for whom Biden's age is a deal-breaker — and those voters could be the difference between him winning and losing. Whether Biden decides to tough it out and stay in the race or step aside in hopes that another Democrat would have a better shot, his age — and the public's growing discomfort with it — will remain a defining storyline of this election.