Poll: 61 percent of Democrats believe Biden on Reade, but 25 percent want new nominee

A new poll showed 61 percent of Democrats believe former Vice President Joe Biden’s (D) denial of a sexual assault allegation by former Senate staffer Tara Reade.

A Morning Consult poll released late Monday indicated that 61 percent of Democrats surveyed believe Biden was “very credible” or “somewhat credible” when shown a clip of Biden’s interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” last week in which the former vice president denied Reade’s allegation.

But 26 percent say that the Democratic Party should move to replace Biden after watching the video of his remarks, while 61 percent — the same percentage who found his denial at least somewhat credible — say Biden should remain the nominee. That number includes 28 percent of Democratic women.

Younger voters were more likely to want Biden replaced as the presumptive nominee of the Democratic Party , with 40 percent of voters under 45 agreeing that he should be replaced by another candidate and just 15 percent of older voters saying the same.

Among all voters, Biden’s credibility on the issue is nearly split — 41 percent of all voters said that Biden’s denial was “somewhat credible” or “very credible,” while 38 percent said it was “not that credible” or “not credible at all.”

Reade has yet to give an on-camera interview about the allegations after saying she had received threats.

The Morning Consult poll, taken between May 2-3, surveyed 1,991 registered voters, with a margin of error of 2 percentage points. The margin of error increases to 4 percentage points for questions asked of the population of 737 registered Democrats.