Post-Debate, Swing Voters Are Increasingly More Concerned About Biden’s Age Than Trump’s Criminal Charges
By Abby Springs and Lew Blank
In the aftermath of the first presidential debate, Data for Progress conducted four surveys to gauge the attitudes of Biden-Trump swing voters towards the two nominees. Across the pooled surveys, we conducted 4,684 respondent interviews, with a sample of 566 swing voters.
This data builds off our continued analysis of the swing voters of the 2024 election. To identify swing voters, Data for Progress has developed a unique methodology that captures those who are not certain to vote for Biden, Trump, or a third-party candidate in 2024.
Before the debate and before Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts, we found that swing voters were more concerned about Trump’s criminal charges (48%) than Biden’s age (41%), with 11% unsure.
After the debate, swing voters have flipped. Now, 53% say they are more concerned about Biden’s age, a 12-point increase from our last survey of swing voters. Only 37% say they are more concerned about Trump’s criminal charges, an 11-point decrease.
This is a much larger shift among swing voters than among all likely voters. Among the full sample of likely voters, there has been a two-point increase in concern for Biden’s age over Trump’s criminal charges.
The survey also asked swing voters about the characteristics of Biden and Trump. A plurality of swing voters say that Biden is more honest than Trump. However, swing voters say that the terms “strong,” “fit to run the country,” and “has better plans to solve our country’s problems” apply more to Trump.
As shown in our first report of swing voters, swing voters are less enthusiastic about the 2024 election and strongly disapprove of both Biden and Trump. Therefore, it is unsurprising that only 14% of Biden-Trump swing voters say Biden should remain the Democratic nominee. Eighteen percent say Harris should take his spot, while 57% say the Democratic Party should hold a convention among delegates to pick a replacement.
Swing voters are split on who they think should replace Biden if he drops out of the race. A plurality of swing voters (34%) are unsure, while 23% choose Harris. The remaining set of swing voters are split between other potential alternatives.
These surveys were fielded before the assassination attempt on Donald Trump and therefore do not take into account the potential impact of that event. However, these results raise alarm bells about the ability of President Biden to turn swing voters’ focus back to Trump and the Republican Party platform and alleviate their concerns about his age and ability to do the job.
Abby Springs (@abby_springs) is the press secretary at Data for Progress.
Lew Blank (@LewBlank) is a communications strategist at Data for Progress.
Survey Methodology
From June 28 to July 14, 2024, Data for Progress conducted four surveys with 4,684 respondent interviews of U.S. likely voters, including 566 swing voters, using web panel respondents. Each sample was weighted to be representative of likely voters by age, gender, education, race, geography, and 2020 recalled vote. The surveys were conducted in English. The margin of error associated with the sample size is ±1 percentage point, and crosstabs of subgroups of the sample are subject to increased margins of error. For more information please visit dataforprogress.org/our-methodology.