Shocking DailyMail.com poll results suggest Trump can STILL be beaten in 2024… but only if Democrats take an incredible gamble, writes pollster JAMES JOHNSON

It is almost impossible for President Joe Biden to win the 2024 election without having a majority of independent voters and he has now lost them, perhaps irretrievably.

That’s the result of an exclusive DailyMail.com poll of politically unaligned voters who watched the first presidential debate on Thursday night.

But this poll of independent-minded Americans also holds a hidden glimmer of hope for Democrats, discouraged by their favorite’s surprisingly weak showing.

Because if President Biden were to drop out of the race — as prominent Democrats and influential left-wing media commentators are urging him to do — and allow his party to unite around an alternative candidate, there would still be a chance to defeat Trump in a general election.

Make no mistake, as a previous DailyMail.com poll showed, voters have a negative view of the aging president.

Before the debate, 48% of independent voters said they had an unfavorable opinion of Biden (41% said the same of Trump).

But Biden’s faltering debate performance, which fell short of even the lowest expectations, cemented the perception that he is simply too old for the job.

“I was worried about him,” Miguel, a 23-year-old Hispanic voter from Missouri who identifies as neither a Republican nor a Democrat, told the Mail.

Miguel was not alone.

“Sad,” “scared,” “confused,” “worried” and “concerned” were the most common reactions among these voters to Biden’s debate performance. While these Americans expressed sympathy for the 81-year-old grandfather, they don’t believe he should be in the race.

Fifty-five percent of independents said Biden “should no longer be the Democratic nominee.”

Certainly, Senator Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential election and defeated Republican John McCain without gaining the support of independent voters. But Obama benefited from historic turnout among black voters.

Biden will not enjoy the same level of support from minorities.

The desire for Biden to drop out was shared by 49 percent of black independents and 57 percent of Hispanic independents.

Strikingly, four in ten independents who voted for Biden in 2020 agreed that the party must continue without him.

They may be right.

Behind this poll lies a glimmer of hope for left-wing Americans terrified of another Trump presidency.

The Mail poll suggests Trump failed to win over a significant percentage of new voters, even though he won the night.

Before the debate, 48% of independent voters had a favorable opinion of Trump. After the debate, that figure rose only a few percentage points to 51 percent – a statistically insignificant figure within the poll’s margin of error – even though six in ten voters say Trump “performed best in of the debate.”

Moreover, in terms of perceptions of Trump, the situation was mixed.

He was considered the physically strongest, the most presidential and the most mentally astute – but also the most condescending, the most annoying and the most rude (Biden was considered the most annoying).

Trump won because Biden lost badly. The former real estate mogul did not re-invite himself. Trump remains the most unpopular politician in the country, behind Biden.

What we must remember from these results is that there is an opportunity for the Democrats, if they manage to change candidates.

One in eight independent voters surveyed in our survey said they plan to vote for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in November. While it is extremely unlikely that the Democratic establishment will rally behind him, independents are clearly eager to hear what he has to say.

55% of independents believe that RFK Jr should have had a place on the CNN debate stage. That includes nearly six in ten people who supported Biden in 2020.

And what about the other Democrats so often mentioned as potential Biden replacements?

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and California Gov. Gavin Newsom are not well known to the American public, making polls on their electoral prospects unreliable. But their relative anonymity could prove an asset.

They would present themselves to voters as a blank slate, free of the heavy baggage of more familiar politicians, such as Vice President Kamala Harris.

Past polls have made one thing abundantly clear: Harris is unlikely to outperform Biden against Trump.

She was recently named in a September 2023 Mail poll of all voters as the least popular vice president in history.

The most common words used to describe her were “incompetent” and “idiot.”

A quarter of Democrats, one in four black voters and a majority of 18- to 29-year-olds said they preferred Biden to replace her as his running mate.

There is no doubt that the path forward for Democrats is fraught with challenges.

Even though independents were pushed away from Biden by Thursday night’s debate, they did not swing toward Trump in any significant way.

There is a way forward for Democrats.

This does not involve President Biden or Vice President Harris.