(HorizonPost.com) – Vegas betting markets showed that last week’s disastrous debate performance by President Joe Biden sent his odds of winning the 2024 presidential election tumbling while challenger Donald Trump’s odds improved.
Biden’s muddled, mumbling, and often confused debate performance sent shockwaves through Washington and the media, with pundits and elected officials alike openly suggesting that the president should consider dropping out of the race.
CNN’s flash poll following the June 27 debate showed that 67 percent of viewers believed Trump outperformed Biden while only 33 percent said Biden did better.
By the weekend, multiple editorial boards, including the editorial board of the New York Times, were calling on Biden to step aside for the good of the country.
Before last Thursday’s debate, Vegas betting markets gave Donald Trump a 55.7 percent chance of winning the November election. Biden, meanwhile, was given a 35.9 percent chance.
Following the debate, Trump’s chances were boosted to 59.7 percent while Biden’s fell more than 10 points to 22 percent.
Over the weekend, the Biden family gathered at Camp David where sources claimed that they planned to discuss “the path forward.”
By Sunday, sources confirmed that Biden’s family urged him to remain in the race, with son Hunter making the strongest case for his father to stick with it.
However, polling suggests that recovering from last week’s debate performance may be more difficult than the Biden family might think.
A CBS News poll released on Sunday found that 56 percent of respondents believed Trump did better in Thursday’s debate while only 16 percent said Biden did.
Worse still, a staggering 72 percent of respondents said Biden was not mentally or cognitively healthy enough to serve as president, a 7-point jump from a CBS poll conducted just three weeks earlier.
Likewise, 72 percent of respondents do not believe that Biden should be running for a second term, a 9-point jump from a February CBS News poll.
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