Generational divide on Biden? Many young voters want new Democratic nominee, poll says
Many millennial Democrats say former Vice President Joe Biden should be replaced as the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee after watching a clip of him denying a sexual assault allegation against him, according to a Morning Consult poll.
Of Democrats 45 years and older, only 15% said he should be replaced.
The Morning Consult poll surveyed 1,991 registered voters and has a two-point margin of error.
Tara Reade, who worked as a staff assistant when Biden was a senator, told The New York Times that Biden allegedly sexually assaulted her in 1993. A friend of Reade said that she told her about the allegation at the time and another friend and Reade’s brother said she spoke about the incident to them.
Biden denied the allegations in a recent interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“It is not true. I am saying unequivocally it never never happened and it didn’t,” Biden said, according to NBC. “It never happened.”
Biden said in the interview that “from the very beginning, I’ve said believing women means taking the woman’s claims seriously when she steps forward, and then vetted. Look into it. That’s true in this case, as well.”
Forty-five percent of all voters between 18 and 34 years of age also said they thought Reade’s allegation was true, according to a Monmouth poll.
The Monmouth poll was based on 739 registered voters and conducted by telephone with 808 adults in the U.S. The results have a 3.6 percentage point margin of error.
A focus group on millennial and Gen Z voters who identify as Democrats or independents in 11 battleground states found that they preferred former presidential candidate Bernie Sanders and saw Biden “as a blank slate,” according to NBC News.
“On the other hand, there are clear warning signs,” the firm that conducted the focus group wrote, according to NBC. “For now, perceptions that Biden is too close to corporate interests or that he is dishonest often appear linked to more general perceptions of him as a ‘typical’ or ‘career politician,’ rather than someone who is particularly bad.”
The focus group was conducted in April by political consulting firm Global Strategy Group on behalf of progressive advocacy group NextGen America, according to NBC News.
This story was originally published May 7, 2020 at 10:32 AM with the headline "Generational divide on Biden? Many young voters want new Democratic nominee, poll says."