SAGINAW, Michigan (AP) — With the choices in this year’s presidential election quick approaching, Rochelle Jones believes the two major party candidates should withdraw.
“You just have to find someone who will run the country properly, who has no health problems and who cares about the people,” the 39-year-old Michigan State University chef said this week.
As President Joe Biden seeks to recover from his disastrous debate performance last month, he argues the desire to see him off the campaign trail is restricted to his party’s “elite.” But Jones’ opinion reflects a more nuanced reality playing out in some of the most politically contested states, from Michigan to Pennsylvania and Nevada.
In interviews this week, many voters said they would still support Biden. But they also expressed concern that a lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy could lead many Democratic voters to stay home, allowing Republican Donald Trump to win the race. Some are also concerned about the impact Biden’s continued candidacy would have on lower-party elections at a time when control of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate are also at stake.
Although Biden has received his strongest support from black elected officials in recent days, many black voters in swing states have expressed concern. Jones, who is black herself, said she will likely vote for Biden when it comes down to it, but she feels he needs to address inflation, an issue that is most essential to her.
The only common factor for most Democrats – elite and core voters alike – is the threat of a second Trump term. Biden has long argued that if it’s a neck-and-neck race, voters will reject Trump, regardless of their reservations about the incumbent.
Fear is growing among ordinary voters as Biden fends off public and private pressure to give up the Democratic nomination and allow the party to field another candidate to oppose Trump in November. House Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday said only that “it is up to the president” whether he should stay in the race, Vermont Senator Peter Welch called on Biden to drop out of the election, becoming the first Senate Democrat to do so, and prominent donor George Clooney also said Biden should not run.
“I hear more often from people of color, ‘If not him, what’s the alternative?'” said Craig Tatum, a pastor and prominent black leader in Saginaw, Michigan. He said many people he speaks with find Biden’s performance troubling but remain committed to voting Democrat after Trump’s presidency and character.
Saginaw County is a demographic microcosm of the entire state of Michigan and the only indicator that has been on the winning side in the last four presidential elections. The county’s namesake city has a population of 44,000 and is about half black, while the surrounding areas are predominantly Republican.
Trump had a narrow lead over Biden in two national exit polls taken after the debate. One of the polls – conducted by SSRS for CNN – found that three-quarters of voters, including more than half of Democratic voters, said the party would have a better chance of winning the presidency in November with a candidate other than Biden. About 7 in 10 voters – and 45% of Democrats – said that.
Biden’s physical and mental fitness is a reason to vote against him, according to the CNN/SSRS poll. And about 6 in 10 voters, including about a quarter of Democrats, said re-electing Biden as president in November would be a risky rather than a protected decision for the country, according to a New York Times/Siena College poll. That poll also found Democrats split on whether Biden should remain the nominee.
Ethan Williams, who teaches at a summer education program in Saginaw, will turn 18 before the November election. He said he and his friends who watched the debate were shocked by what they saw.
“We were not thrilled, to say the least,” he said.
Williams said he found the recent Supreme Court ruling on presidential immunity, Trump’s capital crime convictions and Trump’s second-term platform known as Project 2025 particularly troubling. He plans to vote for Biden despite his age, but may focus more on local and state elections.
“Biden would have the best chance of beating Trump,” he said. “But I don’t like that fact.”
Pamela Pugh, a Saginaw resident since birth who is running in the Democratic primary for a contested congressional district in Michigan, disagreed on whether Biden should be the Democratic nominee, saying candidates like her who are lower on the ballot must rely on themselves to enhance turnout and attract voters “who don’t believe the candidates at the top of the ballot represent them.”
Pugh called Biden’s performance in the debate “more than subpar” and stressed that he needs to “do work in our communities” to remain in office for another four years.
Members of the influential Congressional Black Caucus and other black activists in the Democratic Party have proven to be some of the most energetic supporters of Biden remaining the party’s nominee and on the ballot. In the 2020 Democratic primaries, black voters helped Biden to victories in early primary states, with overwhelming support in South Carolina, on Super Tuesday and in Midwestern states like Michigan.
As long as blacks and juvenile people vote in huge numbers, Biden will win, said Brian Humphrey, a 62-year-old black activist from Pennsylvania. But he worries about younger voters – like his granddaughters, one 18 and one 19 – who have no enthusiasm for a man four times their age.
“To be honest, I’m a little worried right now,” Humphrey said. “Because of his age and stuff, and because my little grandchildren are telling me he’s too old and I’m not voting for that old man. I’m trying to convince them that he’s the better of the two candidates.”
For Alyse Sobosan, a school counselor in Las Vegas, the uproar over Biden’s performance at the debate is a distraction that Democrats do not need right now.
“It distracts from the campaign and the real issues,” she said. “That’s the only thing you can talk about, so it makes sense to me for him to resign.”
Despite the ambivalence and fear of many Democrats, Biden continues to enjoy support that ranges from enthusiastic to resigned.
James Johnson, a retired public school teacher in Pennsylvania, said Biden’s performance was “difficult to watch” but “in no way diminished my determination to vote for him and see him elected as the next president.”
Teresa Hoover, a Democrat who heard Biden’s speech on Sunday in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, agreed.
“He was the chosen candidate and I think we’re only months away now, so it’s pretty difficult to change course,” Hoover said.
Despite all the dismay, the debate did not change the fundamental fact that the candidates are unpopular and Americans are unenthusiastic about their selection.
“I couldn’t bring myself to watch the debate because I don’t get along with either candidate,” says Christian Garrett, a 26-year-old summer education program director in Saginaw.
Garrett said he is unsure how he will vote, saying he believes Trump is vindictive and Biden is incapable of continuing to lead.
“That’s why I feel like this case has become a joke, because we as Americans are just sitting there and watching this unfold,” he said. “And it’s almost like we have no power, when in reality the power is with us.”
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Cooper reported from Phoenix and Levy from Harrisburg, Pa. Associated Press writer Rio Yamat in Las Vegas contributed to this report.
