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59% Think Biden Unlikely to Finish A Four-Year Term in White House

Likely Democrat nominee Joe Biden is expected to announce his vice presidential running mate any day now, and most voters think it’s likely that person will be president within the next four years if Biden is elected in November.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 59% of Likely U.S. Voters believe it’s likely Biden’s running mate will be president before the end of Biden’s four-year term if he wins this fall, with 39% who say it’s Very Likely. Thirty-five percent (35%) consider it unlikely that Biden’s vice presidential choice will be president before his four-year term ends, but that includes only 14% who think it’s Not At All Likely. (To see survey question wording, click here.) 

Even 49% of Democrats think it’s likely Biden’s vice president will become president in the next four years, although that compares to 73% of Republicans and 57% of voters not affiliated with either major party.

However, only 45% of all voters say Biden’s choice of a running mate is important to their vote this fall, including 23% who say it’s Very Important. This compares to 76% who say generally speaking that a candidate’s vice presidential nominee is important to their vote, with 34% who feel it’s Very Important.

But then just over half of voters continue to say they’re likely to vote against President Trump this fall, and a sizable majority of those voters don’t seem to care who runs against him. 

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted August 6 and 9, 2020 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Thirty-eight percent (38%) of voters, including 20% of Democrats, believe Biden, who would be 78 if he takes office in January, is suffering from some form of dementia. Sixty-one percent (61%) think it is important for him to address the dementia issue publicly.

Democrats (59%) attach more important to Biden’s running mate than Republicans (32%) and unaffiliated voters (43%) do.

The younger the voter, the more convinced they are that Biden is unlikely to finish a four-year term if elected president. But most voters in nearly every demographic category think it’s likely his running mate will become president in the next four years.

Biden has promised to name a black woman as his vice president, so it’s not surprising that his choice is more important to blacks than to whites and other minority voters. Blacks and other minorities are much more convinced that Biden’s running mate will assume the presidency within the next four years.

Fifty-three percent (53%) of voters who Strongly Disapprove of the job Trump is doing say Biden’s selection of a running mate is important to their vote. Just 28% of those who Strongly Approve of the president’s job performance agree.

Biden who has yet to be formally nominated by the Democratic Party continues to hold a narrow advantage over Trump in Rasmussen Report’s latest weekly White House Watch survey

Sixty percent (60%) of Democrats think it is important for Biden’s running mate to be a women or a person of color

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted August 6 and 9, 2020 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

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