#Over half of likely voters don’t believe Joe Biden will finish first term: poll

More than half of likely voters believe that presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden would not finish his first term if elected president, a new poll found.

The poll, released Monday by Rasmussen Reports, found that 59 percent of likely voters thought it was probable that Biden’s running mate would become president over the course of the four-year span.

Thirty-nine percent of likely voters saw the scenario of Biden not finishing his first term as very likely, as opposed to just likely.

Divided up by party, even 49 percent of likely Democratic voters said they believed Biden’s veep would take over the job.

Seventy-three percent of Republicans and 57 percent of non-party affiliated likely voters also said they did not believe Biden would be able to last the entirety of his term.

Biden, who would be 78 in January, has faced rumors that he would be a one-term president due to his age. This has led to speculation that whoever was chosen as his running mate would almost certainly be poised to take the presidency in 2024.

Biden and his campaign have denied the speculation.

Still, the Rasmussen polling found that only 45 percent of all voters said they believed that Biden’s choice for a VP was important to their vote this fall.

Biden spent the weekend huddled with family in his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, narrowing down his choices for a running mate.

The former vice president was spotted in and around his beach house throughout the weekend, even taking a bike ride during which he quipped to a Fox News reporter that he had chosen him as his running mate. The Biden campaign later clarified that this was, in fact, a joke.

The former vice president has previously said he would announce his running mate in the first week of August.

Despite this, aides, surrogates and other campaign officials have long said that Biden’s only real deadline is the Democratic National Convention, which starts on Aug. 17.

This aligns with Biden’s past of ignoring self-imposed deadlines on bigger political decisions. The former vice president missed deadline after deadline in early 2019 while deciding whether to enter the 2020 race.

Rasmussen polled 1,000 likely voters between Aug 6-9. Their margin of error was /- 3 percentage points.