Is Joe Biden Looking At These Polls?

Today's polls don't offer much in the way of encouragement to a Biden presidential run.

NBC News/WSJ:

Hillary Clinton has widened her lead in the Democratic primary race after a strong performance in the party’s first televised debate, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.

The poll offered little encouragement for Vice President Joe Biden as he wrestles with whether to enter the contest. For all the respect the vice president enjoys within his party, just 30% of Democratic primary voters said they would like to see him run for the presidential nomination, with 38% saying he shouldn’t run.

The survey, conducted Oct. 15-18, found Mrs. Clinton leading the primary field with 49% support, compared with 29% for Sen. Bernie Sanders, and 15% for Mr. Biden.

Without the vice president on the ballot, Mrs. Clinton’s lead over Mr. Sanders opened to 58% to 33%—a margin 10 percentage points wider than in a Journal/NBC News poll taken in late September, before the Oct. 13 Democratic debate.  (our emphasis)

ABC News/Washington Post:

With anticipation surrounding Biden at a peak, Clinton has 54 percent support in interviews Thursday through Sunday, compared with Sanders’ 23 percent and Biden’s 16 percent. That’s 12 percentage points better for Clinton than her position a month ago, bringing her halfway back to her level of support in the spring and summer, before her September stumble.  [snip]

Clinton’s support for the nomination is more than double Sanders’ and triple the unannounced Biden’s. Leaving Biden out of the equation, she has even more support, 64 percent, compared with 25 percent for Sanders, with others in the low single digits. That’s improved slightly for Clinton from a 56-28 percent race vs. Sanders in September. (our emphasis)

As we noted the other day, we tend to agree with brother Tomasky that Biden's best course of action would be to say he's sitting out the primaries; he keeps his reputation and legacy intact while gaining great favor with Clinton (and maybe even some Sanders) supporters.  At the same time he'd be leaving the door ajar ever so slightly for a draft in the highly unlikely case Clinton's campaign implodes.  Either way, this mindless tease that's been going on with the media's active involvement should end, and end very soon.