Biden Voters Want President To Face Debate in 2024

A majority of voters who backed President Joe Biden in 2020 believe he should face debates with other Democratic presidential candidates, according to a new poll conducted for Newsweek.

A Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll carried out on April 30 found that 79 percent of eligible voters who voted for Biden agree that the Democratic Party should hold televised primary debates.

Biden is being challenged for the Democratic nomination by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., nephew of President John F. Kennedy and an outspoken anti-vaccine activist; and by Marianne Williamson, a self-help author and 2020 Democratic candidate.

The Democratic Party has been criticized for the fact that no debates are planned but neither major party has held primary debates when they have an incumbent in the White House seeking re-election since modern presidential debates began in the 1970s.

Support for Democratic Debates

Despite the precedent for not holding debates when an incumbent is running again, the Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll found that 68 percent of eligible voters believe the Democratic Party should hold televised debates, compared to 15 percent who answered "no" and 17 percent who responded "don't know."

The overall poll was conducted among 1,500 eligible voters in the U.S.

The figure supporting debates was even higher among those who said they'd previously voted for Biden, with 79 percent agreeing there should be Democratic primary debates.

A further 11 percent said there shouldn't be debates and 10 percent didn't know.

Those who voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020 overwhelmingly agreed that the Republican Party should hold primary debates, with 79 percent supporting the idea, 12 percent opposed and 9 percent answering "don't know."

'Nothing to Gain'

It remains unlikely that the Democratic Party will hold any debates featuring Biden and his challengers. Political scientists who spoke to Newsweek suggested that the president has little reason to welcome primary debates.

"Biden has nothing to gain and everything to lose in Democrat primary debates," said Mark Shanahan, an associate professor in politics at the University of Surrey in the U.K. He is co-editor of The Trump Presidency: From Campaign Trail to World Stage.

"So the chances of him agreeing to take part are somewhere between none and even less," Shanahan told Newsweek. "If Trump is the GOP candidate, he runs against Biden and the current president almost certainly wins. If another GOP candidate emerges, the picture becomes far more interesting and the contest conceivably gets a lot closer."

Shanahan said "there is no value in Biden offering up his best lines before he gets to the Democrat v GOP head to head, nor giving his opponent any ammunition to use against him."

He described Biden as "a wily old political bird who will do everything to conduct the 2024 campaign on his own terms. The Democrats know full well what happens when they lose control of the process. It happened as recently as 2016."

Dissatisfied Voters

While Biden continues to lead Kennedy and Williamson in recent polls of potential Democratic primary voters, a desire for debates could indicate that voters are unhappy, according to Thomas Gift, founding director of University College London's Centre on U.S. Politics (CUSP).

"The fact that such a high percentage of the Democratic electorate wants to see primary debates is confirmatory of polling showing just how dissatisfied rank-and-file voters are with their option of Joe Biden," Gift told Newsweek.

"In the end, it doesn't matter because a messy primary battle would be a nightmare for Democrats, and leadership would never agree to debates that have the potential to weaken Biden heading into the general election."

"But it's clearly evidence of a lack of enthusiasm that will dog Biden's campaign heading into November of 2024," Gift added.

Update 5/11/23, 5:15 p.m. ET: This article was updated to clarify descriptions of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Marianne Williamson.