News
Nearly two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to withdraw, new AP-NORC poll finds
WASHINGTON (AP) — Nearly two-thirds of Democrats say President Joe Biden should withdraw from the presidential race and let his party nominate a different candidate, according to a new poll, sharply undercutting his post-debate claim that “average Democrats” are still with him even if some “big names” are turning on him.
The new survey by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, conducted as Biden works to salvage his candidacy two weeks after his debate flop, also found that only about 3 in 10 Democrats are extremely or very confident that he has the mental capability to serve effectively as president, down slightly from 40% in an AP-NORC poll in February.
The findings underscore the challenges the 81-year-old president faces as he tries to silence calls from within his own party to leave the race and tries to convince Democrats that he’s the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump. The poll was conducted mostly before Saturday’s assassination attempt on Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. It’s unclear whether the shooting influenced people’s views of Biden, but the small number of poll interviews completed after the shooting provided no early indication that his prospects improved.
Meanwhile, as Vice President Kamala Harris receives additional scrutiny amid the talk about whether Biden should bow out, the poll found that her favorability rating is similar to his — but the share of Americans who have an unfavorable opinion of her is slightly lower.
The poll provides some evidence that Black Democrats are among Biden’s strongest supporters, with roughly half in the survey saying he should continue running, compared to about 3 in 10 white and Hispanic Democrats. Overall, seven in 10 Americans think Biden should drop out, with Democrats only slightly less likely than Republicans and independents to say that he should make way for a new nominee.
“I do have genuine concerns about his ability to hold the office,” said Democrat Andrew Holcomb, 27, of Denver. “I think he’s frankly just too old for the job.”
AP Washington correspondent Sagar Meghani reports a new poll sharply undercuts President Biden’s claim that ‘average Democrats’ are still with him after his debate debacle.
Janie Stapleton, a 50-year-old lifelong Democrat from Walls, Mississippi, held the opposite view, saying Biden is the “best candidate” for president.
People aren’t just sour on Biden on as they size up their choices this election season.
What to know about the 2024 Election
About 6 in 10 Americans want Trump to withdraw — but relatively few Republicans are in that camp.
As for Biden, younger Democrats are especially likely to want to see him bow out – and to say they’re dissatisfied with him. Three-quarters of Democrats under the age of 45 want Biden to drop out, compared to about 6 in 10 of those who are older.
“I just feel like these two individuals are a sad choice,” said Alexi Mitchell, 35, a civil servant who lives in Virginia. She identifies as a Democratic-leaning independent, and while she thinks Biden is probably still mentally up to the job, she worries that the past few weeks’ unraveling of support makes him a weak candidate, no matter what happens next. “If he doesn’t have control over his own party, that’s a fatal flaw,” she said. “He’s put us in a bad position where Trump might win.”
Despite bullish talk from the Biden campaign heading into the debate, the faceoff only left the president in a deeper hole. Democrats are slightly more likely to say they’re dissatisfied with Biden as their nominee now than they were before his halting performance. About half are dissatisfied, an uptick from about 4 in 10 in an AP-NORC poll from June.
By contrast, most Republicans – about 6 in 10 – came out of the debate very or somewhat satisfied with Trump as their candidate. Too few interviews were conducted after the assassination attempt to provide a clear indication of whether Republicans or Americans overall have rallied further around Trump since then.
David Parrott, a Democrat from Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee, was willing to give Biden the benefit of the doubt given the president’s age, but he still voiced concerns about a potential second term.
“I don’t know if he can make it another four years or not,” said Parrott, a 58-year-old retiree. “Shouldn’t he be sitting at his beach house taking it easy?”
All of the recent churn has left Americans much more likely to think Trump is capable of winning the 2024 election than is Biden – 42% to 18%. About a quarter thought the the two men equally capable of winning.
Even Democrats are relatively dour about their party’s prospects come November.
Only about a third of Democrats believe Biden is more capable of winning than is Trump. About 3 in 10 think the two are equally capable of winning and 16% say victory is more likely to go to the Republican. By contrast, Republicans are overwhelmingly convinced that Trump is in the best position to win.
Trump also has the edge on Biden when Americans consider who is most capable of handling a crisis, 38% to 28%. And people are about equally divided on which candidate has the better vision for the country, with 35% saying Biden and 34% Trump.
For all of the disenchantment Biden is up against, the president insists it’s not too late to turn things around, saying past presidents have come back from a deficit at this stage in the campaign. In an interview Tuesday with BET News, he said many voters haven’t focused yet, adding, “The point is, we’re just getting down to gametime right now.”
The poll did also offer a bright spot for Biden: 40% of adults say he’s more honest than Trump, while about 2 in 10 think the opposite.
Most Democrats — around 6 in 10 — say that Vice President Harris would make a good president, while 22% think not and 2 in 10 don’t know enough to say. The poll showed that 43% of U.S. adults have a favorable opinion of her, while 48% have an unfavorable opinion. Somewhat more have a negative view of Biden: approximately 6 in 10 Americans.
The survey was conducted before Trump selected freshman Sen. JD Vance of Ohio as his running mate. It showed that for most Americans, Vance is still an unknown. Six in 10 don’t know enough about him to form an opinion, while 17% have a favorable view and 22% view him negatively.
___
The poll of 1,253 adults was conducted July 11-15, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.
More than 8 million people showed up across 3,300 No Kings protests on Saturday, calling for an end to the war in Iran, immigration agents in their communities and what they see as Trump’s creeping authoritarianism. Organizers say it’s the greatest number of protests in a single day in US history.
But movement scholars say social change doesn’t begin and end with one protest. It takes activism at the local and national level, and in a variety of forms, to bring about change.
“No Kings was conceived to unite a cross-movement push against authoritarianism. And there is not one way to fight it,” said Leah Greenberg, a co-executive director of the Indivisible Project, which founded the No Kings movement. “We see No Kings as part of a tapestry of defiance that is going on.”
In the past year, Americans have demanded change through a variety of actions. When Donald Trump sent federal agents into Los Angeles and Chicago, people rallied in the streets and called for “ICE Out!” When consumers wanted to express disapproval of corporations’ ties to Trump, they initiated boycotts of Target, Tesla and Amazon. When students were upset at the presence of ICE agents in their schools and communities, they organized walkouts.
“Protests build power by garnering attention and pulling people off the sidelines into action,” said Hahrie Han, a political scientist at Johns Hopkins University and the author of Prisms of the People: Power and Organizing in Twenty-First-Century America. “And if we look historically and across different movements, change is often a combination of people taking action through a variety of means and then leaders negotiating for power given the actions that people have taken.”
Han pointed to activists in Minnesota who were able to pass a raft of progressive and pro-labor laws in 2023 – paid family and medical leave and driver’s licenses for undocumented residents, among others – as an example of successful movement building by organizing with multiracial coalitions, strategizing with legislators and negotiating proposed legislation.
“It’s one of the most generous social safety nets in the country, and organizers were able to put grassroots energy together with institutional politics,” said Han.
No Kings’ success, organizers say, will be defined by whether attendees have signed up to organize in their communities and follow through on other actions, like know-your-rights trainings and mutual aid.
“What we think is actually important are the ways in which these large-scale gatherings fuel ongoing organizing that might look like economic non-cooperation, local mutual aid organizing or legislative advocacy at the state or local level,” said Greenberg. “It’s all connected if we do it right.”
Here’s a look at how these efforts have worked over time.
Protest
Some of the earliest protests in America include covert and overt acts that enslaved people took to object to bondage, including working slowly in the fields, breaking or misplacing tools, setting fires or running away. Enslaved people also attempted to free themselves by organizing armed rebellions and revolts.
Occupation has historically been another effective form of protest. Throughout the 1900s, Indigenous Americans protested US treaty violations by occupying Alcatraz Island, Mount Rushmore and the bureau of Indian affairs building to demand land back.
But probably the most recognizable form of protest is the one in the streets, immortalized in the marches, freedom rides and sit-ins of the civil rights movement for social justice and equal rights in the 1950s and 1960s.
Over the past 10 years, numerous mass protests have swept through the country, including March for Our Lives in 2018 to demand stricter gun control measures, the Black Lives Matter protests, triggered by the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, and the No Kings protests against the Trump administration last October. In 2025, the first year of Trump’s second term, more people protested in the streets than in 2017, the first year of his first term, according to data from the open-source project Crowd Counting Consortium
“The amount of people protesting is record-breaking,” said Hunter Dunn, an organizer with the grassroots organization 50501, which co-founded No Kings. “There’s also enthusiasm for using protests as a launchpad to get people involved in local organizing – whether it’s election defense with the midterms coming up, or immigrants’ rights organizing or organizing against AI data centers.”
Rally, march and parade
During rallies, people often gather at parks, on streets and other public locations to bring attention to a cause. A street protest or march can also culminate in a rally, where participants take turns speaking, performing music or leafleting attendees to share goals and literature about the cause.
Much like “rally”, “march” and “parade” are also terms used interchangeably with “protest”. In 1913, suffragists held the Women’s Suffrage Parade to draw attention to how women could vote in only nine states.
In 2017, activists held the first Women’s March the day after Trump’s first inauguration, protesting his rhetoric and platform as misogynistic and an overall threat to women. Activists and scholars have credited the march with driving the #MeToo movement and a record number of women to participate in the 2018 midterm elections.
“There was something special and different when people said #MeToo,” Fatima Goss Graves, president and CEO of the National Women’s Law Center, told the Guardian. “We had worked on issues related to harassment and gender-based violence over many decades. But the #MeToo movement really gave people a framework to speak out and name their experiences.”
General strike
Labor unions have a rich history of protest in the US, particularly in the form of a strike or a work stoppage in which workers demand better conditions, including healthcare benefits, on-the-job safety protections and higher wages.
A general strike is much larger; it’s when a sizable portion of the workforce in a certain town or region stops working to bring about economic or social change.
The first general strike in North America was in 1835 in Philadelphia, where 20,000 workers across 40 sectors demanded a 10-hour workday and fairer wages. In the end, they won – incorporating rallies, parades and newspaper campaigns to secure 10-hour workdays for skilled and unskilled workers in the city – and became the catalyst of labor organizing in the US.
After federal immigration agents killed Minneapolis residents Renee Good and Alex Pretti this January, organizers called for a national general strike of “no school, no work, and no shopping” to protest the presence and brutality of federal agents in the city. Thousands in Minnesota participated in protests, hundreds of businesses closed and work stoppages occurred across a variety of sectors, backed by labor unions.
“Those of us in the trade union movement understand the leverage and power that our labor has, and we are going to try and use that, because really there’s nothing else left,” Kieran Knutson, the president of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 7250 in Minneapolis, told the Guardian in January.
Boycott and divestment
Boycotts of corporations have historically involved a refusal to purchase their products or engage with their services, with the hope that punitive pressure can change attitudes and behaviors. Alternatively, a “procott” involves shifting resources to entities that people want to support – such as small local businesses – as they suspend support for others.
In the 1930s, Black Americans led “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaigns in northern cities to advocate for Black jobs at white-owned businesses in Black neighborhoods. The boycotts and picketing, in which protesters stood outside of businesses and held signs, created jobs for Black workers during the Depression.
Divestments are a related form of protest. In 1985, UC Berkeley students demanded the university divest from South Africa in protest against apartheid. Students led rallies, teach-ins and encampments to pressure the university. A year later, the University of California board of regents voted to divest $3bn from companies with ties to South Africa.
In 2025, Americans’ boycott of Target – after the company rolled back its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts – had an impact: Target acknowledged the boycott was one of the reasons sales were down last year.
“We are reclaiming our power,” LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter, told the Guardian during a Black Friday boycott the group helped spearhead last year. “We are redirecting our spending. And we are resisting this rise to authoritarianism.”
Mutual aid
Under an ethos of “solidarity,” mutual aid involves a network of volunteers gathering resources – food, housing assistance and childcare – to support the needs of people in their communities.
In response to the HIV/Aids crisis of the 1980s, LGBTQ+ groups across the country developed care networks to support vulnerable community members. During the coronavirus pandemic, local organizations across the country stepped up to help low-income families, frontline workers and immunocompromised people through grocery delivery programs. One such aid program in Brooklyn, New York, supported 28,000 people with groceries between March 2020 and June 2021.
During Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis in January, in which 3,000 ICE agents killed two Minneapolis residents and arrested hundreds, mutual aid networks were vital for distributing food, money and diapers to immigrant families sheltering in place out of fear of being stopped by ICE.
Brittany Kubricky, a Minneapolis resident, told the Guardian earlier this year she was organizing donations, grocery deliveries and school pick-ups from her dining room table. “I haven’t really ever done something like this before,” she said. “This is just something I tried, and it happens to be working.”
Walkout
When students and employees walk out of schools or workplaces to express their disapproval over a certain issue, the idea is to do so in numbers – the more people who participate, the more impactful the message.
In 1968, 15,000 students walked out en masse as part of the East Los Angeles Walkouts to protest disparities in educational outcomes between white American and Mexican American students. After the walkout, students submitted demands to the Los Angeles board of education to improve the bilingual education curriculum, among other issues. Even though police arrested organizers and the board rejected their demands, the walkout was one of the largest student protests in history.
Walkouts remain a viable protest tactic for young people today, including to voice their grievances against ICE. “This was our way to make our voices heard,” Lark Jeffers told the Guardian after participating in the Free America walkout on 20 January in Silver Spring, Maryland. “Because at the end of the day, we’re 16 – what we say isn’t going to make the lawmaker listen to us.
Teach-in
This longtime form of protest is about sharing knowledge. Activists and protest leaders spend time lecturing people in the movement about their causes, often opening debate and discussion as a means of raising awareness and spurring further action.
Teach-ins were popularized during the Vietnam war when students used them to discuss the war draft and strategies to curtail the US government’s involvement abroad. The first teach-in, which included lectures, debates and films, took place at the University of Michigan in 1965 and was attended by 3,500 students and supporting faculty members. The teach-in boosted the national anti-war movement and inspired other campuses to protest and hold teach-ins of their own.
Teach-ins once again became popular on US college campuses in 2024 as Israel bombed the Gaza Strip following Hamas’ attack. The teach-ins, often in student encampments, educated participants about the long fight for Palestinian freedom and the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement that seeks to isolate Israel economically, politically and culturally over its oppression of Palestinians.
Composites: Rita Liu/The Guardian/Getty Images/Wikimedia Commons
In large cities and small towns across the country, millions took to the streets today in protest against the policies of President Trump and his administration.
Organized by “No Kings,” a network of progressive groups opposed to the administration’s agenda, the protests are the third wave of demonstrations since the President took office for a second term. Last year, millions attended protests in June and again in October.
Crowds assemble at the Embarcadero in San Francisco prior to the start of the protest.
Martin do Nascimento/KQED
hide caption
toggle caption
Martin do Nascimento/KQED
Thousands of community members marched in the flagship “No Kings” protest in St. Paul.
Jaida Grey Eagle/MPR News
hide caption
toggle caption
Jaida Grey Eagle/MPR News
Thousands sign a banner in Hartford at the Capitol that says “We the People.”
Tyler Russell/Connecticut Public
hide caption
toggle caption
Tyler Russell/Connecticut Public
Protesters hold signs and chant slogans in Driggs, Idaho.
Natalie Behring/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Natalie Behring/Getty Images
Demonstrators gather while holding signs near a roadside in Shelbyville, Kentucky.
Jon Cherry/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Jon Cherry/Getty Images
Demonstrators walk across the Memorial Bridge from Arlington, Virginia into Washington, DC.
Ken Cedeno/AFP
hide caption
toggle caption
Ken Cedeno/AFP
Demonstrators march down 7th Avenue and Broadway in Manhattan.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
hide caption
toggle caption
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
![HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, MARCH 28, 2026: Ken MacDonald tears up as he listens to a speech about the plight of his fellow veterans. “[Trump]’s playing with the lives of military people,” he said. Thousands rally at the “No Kings” protest at the capitol in Hartford on March 28, 2026. (Tyler Russell/Connecticut Public)](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6981x4654+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Feb%2F8b%2Fba7a9cb744baa343c85d45caf5ed%2F260328-nokingshartford-trb4371.jpg)
Ken MacDonald tears up in Hartford as he listens to a speech about the plight of his fellow veterans.
Tyler Russell/Connecticut Public
hide caption
toggle caption
Tyler Russell/Connecticut Public
A large crowd marches across the South First bridge toward a gathering at Auditorium Shores in Austin, Texas.
Patricia Lim/KUT News
hide caption
toggle caption
Patricia Lim/KUT News
Lindsay Holliday waves an American flag in Rosa Parks Square in Macon, Georgia.
Grant Blankenship/GPB News
hide caption
toggle caption
Grant Blankenship/GPB News
Demonstrators in downtown St. Louis walk by large banners decrying the U.S. conflict in Iran and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public Radio
hide caption
toggle caption
Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public Radio
Kat Carves works on a ice sculpture that says ‘End Ice’ ahead of the rally on the Boston Common in Boston.
Arthur Mansavage/GBH News
hide caption
toggle caption
Arthur Mansavage/GBH News
Protestors march across an overpass near the Georgia state Capitol building in Atlanta.
Elijah Nouvelage/AFP
hide caption
toggle caption
Elijah Nouvelage/AFP
Protesters hold a banner reading “End the wars, stop ICE, general strike” at Embarcadero Plaza in San Francisco.
Gustavo Hernandez/KQED
hide caption
toggle caption
Gustavo Hernandez/KQED
Maria Perry, left, and John Stock, right, joined protesters gathering in Mill Creek Park in Kansas City, Missouri.
Julie Denesha/KCUR
hide caption
toggle caption
Julie Denesha/KCUR
Duane Inge, a 63-year-old demonstrator, protests in front of Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis.
Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public Radio
hide caption
toggle caption
Brian Munoz/St. Louis Public Radio
A protestor wears a “Let’s be brave” pin at a rally in Richmond, Virginia.
Shaban Athuman/VPM
hide caption
toggle caption
Shaban Athuman/VPM
Demonstrators in costumes stand along the National Mall in Washington, DC.
Ken Cedeno/AFP
hide caption
toggle caption
Ken Cedeno/AFP
Protestors listens as speakers address the crowd gathered in Richmond, Virginia.
Shaban Athuman/VPM News
hide caption
toggle caption
Shaban Athuman/VPM News
Protesters descend on Times Square in New York City.
Charly Triballeau/AFP
hide caption
toggle caption
Charly Triballeau/AFP
Demonstrators begin to march from the Western Sculpture Garden at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul.
Steven Garcia/Minnesota Public Radio
hide caption
toggle caption
Steven Garcia/Minnesota Public Radio
Thousands march towards the Steel Bridge from the waterfront in Portland, Oregon.
Saskia Hatvany/OPB
hide caption
toggle caption
Saskia Hatvany/OPB
Two students were killed and at least seven other people were injured after a school bus crash in Tennessee on Friday, officials said.
The school bus was carrying 25 students and five adults from Kenwood Middle School in Clarksville for a field trip in Jackson, Tennessee, the school district said in a statement.
The crash, which remains under investigation, involved a Tennessee Department of Transportation dump truck, a Chevrolet Trailblazer and the school bus. It happened around noon on Highway 70 in Carroll County, said Maj. Travis Plotzer, a spokesperson for the Tennessee Highway Patrol.
Plotzer said there were two adults in the TDOT vehicle and one person in the Chevrolet Trailblazer. He said the crash is “a parent’s worst nightmare.”
The cause of the crash is under investigation.
At least seven people who were injured were taken by air ambulance to hospitals across Tennessee, including Memphis and Nashville, CBS affiliate WREG reported. The extent of their injuries was not immediately disclosed.
The school’s principal, Karen Miller, said counselors will be available starting Monday. In a written message to families shared on Facebook, she called the crash an unimaginable tragedy and encouraged parents to be attentive to their child’s emotional needs as they process the deaths of their classmates.
“Please continue to pray with us for our students, families, faculty, and staff,” Miller wrote. “I am grateful for the strength of our Kenwood community, and I trust we will all support each other during this difficult time.”
Four people were taken to Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville and were in stable condition Friday, according to a Vanderbilt Health spokesperson.
Another 19 people were taken to Baptist Memorial Hospital-Carroll County, said Kim Alexander, a spokesperson for Baptist Memorial Health Care. All were evaluated and released, though it was unclear how many actually were injured, she said.
CBS affiliate WTVF reported the school bus was on the way to participate in the Toyota Hub City Grand Prix Greenpower USA race in Jackson. The Jackson-Madison County superintendent said in a statement that they were “completely devastated” by the crash and called the loss “immeasurable,” WTVF reported.
The school district was hosting the event.
![!∇∯$[+[!LIVESTREAMs!]+]Washington Wizards vs Portland Trail Blazers Game 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄 Ｓｔｒｅａｍ Ｆｒｅｅ ＯＮ Ｔｖ Ｃｈａｎｎｅｌ](https://i3.wp.com/www.tvyayinakisi.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/sportstv.png?w=80&resize=80,80&ssl=1 "!∇∯$[+[!LIVESTREAMs!]+]Washington Wizards vs Portland Trail Blazers Game 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄 Ｓｔｒｅａｍ Ｆｒｅｅ ＯＮ Ｔｖ Ｃｈａｎｎｅｌ")
!∇∯$[+[!LIVESTREAMs!]+]Washington Wizards vs Portland Trail Blazers Game 𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐄 Ｓｔｒｅａｍ Ｆｒｅｅ ＯＮ Ｔｖ Ｃｈａｎｎｅｌ
What Wisconsin men’s basketball needs to target in the transfer portal this offseason
West Virginia Mountain Bike Association holds Race to Lil Moe’s in Philippi
JCSD1 Board Hears Board-Level Updates
Crypto ATM Count Falls to 38,928 as 597 Machines Exit the Market in Q1 2026
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Indiana Members Credit Union announced as new anchor tenant at Bottleworks District
Scathing report claims nation’s oldest labor union ‘betrayed’ MAGA members through ‘shocking’ spending
Republican US lawmaker demands Congress vote on any Iran troop deployment
So you went to a No Kings protest. Now what?
JD Vance says he was ‘obsessed’ with UFOs, believes aliens are actually ‘demons’
The EU's recipe for trade deals : easy on beef, tough on wine
-
Sports1 week agoIOC addresses execution of 19-year-old Iranian wrestler Saleh Mohammadi
-
New Mexico7 days agoClovis shooting leaves one dead, four injured
-
Miami, FL3 days agoJannik Sinner’s Girlfriend Laila Hasanovic Stuns in Ab-Revealing Post Amid Miami Open
-
Tennessee6 days agoTennessee Police Investigating Alleged Assault Involving ‘Reacher’ Star Alan Ritchson
-
Minneapolis, MN3 days agoBoy who shielded classmate during school shooting receives Medal of Honor
-
Technology1 week agoYouTube job scam text: How to spot it fast
-
Politics1 week agoSchumer gambit fails as DHS shutdown hits 36 days and airport lines grow
-
Science1 week agoRecord Heat Meets a Major Snow Drought Across the West