Michelle Obama, leading choice to replace Joe Biden as presidential candidate: Poll

Nearly half of Democrat voters do not want US President Joe Biden to go into a run-in with his predecessor Donald Trump for the keys to the White House, come November, a new poll has revealed.

Instead, the Democrats want former first lady Michelle Obama to replace him as the party’s frontrunner. 

The poll survey data released by Rasmussen Reports on Monday (Feb 26) shows that about 48 per cent of Democrats approve of the party “finding another candidate to replace Joe Biden before the election in November”, compared to 38 per cent who disapprove. 

However, only 33 per cent believe that such a ballot shakeup, this late in the presidential campaign was likely to happen.

The poll conducted on 960 voters found little consensus on who should replace Biden on the ballot but Obama, 60, led with 20 per cent of respondents voting for her. 

She emerged as the leading candidate amongst the likes of Vice President Kamala Harris, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, “none of the above” and “not sure”.

A difficult climb for Biden

At least 12 per cent of Democrats said they were game for a possible rematch of the 2016 presidential race when Clinton squared up against Trump. 

Notably, Republican Senator Ted Cruz had argued in September last year that Obama might be “parachuted in” at the Democratic National Convention and announced as the party’s nominee for president in place of Biden.

Despite Obama’s repeated insistence that she wants to remain away from politics, her name keeps popping up - leading to routine speculations. 

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With US presidential elections scheduled for November, the war of words has intensified between Biden and Trump. While the Republican nomination seeker is breaking all records in the primaries and caucuses, his Democrat counterpart has been witnessing a severe dip in approval ratings. 

A Gallup poll revealed that Biden has less approval than all recent presidential incumbents. The poll results showed that only 38 per cent of respondents felt that Biden deserved a second term as US president. His predecessor, former US president Donald Trump had an approval rating of 50 per cent in January 2020, the beginning of the election year last time.

Source: WION
-Agencies