Vice President Joe Biden continues to waffle on whether he will join the 2016 presidential race but his poll numbers continue to grow while he takes his sweet time. At this point, we’re creeping up on October and Biden will have to make a decision soon whether he will launch a campaign or essentially retire from his political career when the next administration is sworn in.
Report from Fox News:
On the Democratic side, support for Vice President Joe Biden — who is still considering a run — has almost doubled since August. But make no mistake: Hillary Clinton remains the frontrunner.
Clinton sits atop the Democratic pack with the support of 44 percent of primary voters. Yet that’s a new low for her — down five points since last month. She was at 61 percent in June. Clinton is holding on to her advantage despite 58 percent of all voters — and 31 percent of Democratic primary voters — believing she is lying about her emails.
Clinton’s closest rival is still Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who holds steady at 30 percent. Biden gets a record high 18 percent. A month ago he was at 10 percent. [Emphasis added]
The remaining Democratic candidates are at two percent or less, including the newest entrant — Harvard Professor Lawrence Lessig — who made it official September 9.
Without Biden in the race, it’s Clinton 56 percent and Sanders 32 percent.
Hillary’s numbers continue to drop while Bernie Sanders is chipping away at her lead day by day. He’s out doing events, answering questions, and even visiting places like Liberty University, hardly a bastion of progressive politics. However, Joe Biden remains the wild card and I think his support remains low at this point because he hasn’t shown a serious inclination that he intends to get in the race.
A month ago, I thought he was more likely to get in than I do today. At this point, he’s losing valuable time to get a campaign built out. Perhaps he could break the news days before the first Democratic debate on October 13 and ride into Las Vegas as the shiny new candidate jabbing at Hillary on the debate stage. Only time will tell but it’s hard to determine what Biden is waiting on.
