Joe Biden insists that only the "elites" in his party want him to withdraw from the presidential race. Is that true? It depends on how one defines "elite," one could posit.

Would 56% of the party qualify as "elite"? 

According to the latest Washington Post/ABC-Ipsos Poll, that majority of Democrats want Biden to withdraw after watching his debate performance two weeks ago. Only 42% want Biden to stay in the race:

The poll results contradict Biden’s claim that only party elites want him to step aside. He has said that positive interactions with supporters on the campaign trail have helped persuade him to stay in the race after a debate in which he trailed off and occasionally appeared confused. But the poll finds that 56 percent of Democrats say that he should end his candidacy, while 42 percent say he should continue to seek reelection. Overall, 2 in 3 adults say the president should step aside, including more than 7 in 10 independents.

We'll get back to other results from this poll, but let's take a look at the crosstabs on this question first. Just how "elite" are those abandoning Biden, in or out of the Democrat Party? Take a look at the party's core constituencies to see their response:

• Women: 70% want Biden to withdraw (only 64% among men)
• Independents: 73%
• Dems plus Dem-leaning indies: 62%
• Liberals: 60%
• Moderates: 71%

Either 'elite' is a remarkably accessible status these days, or Team Biden's still gaslighting. And the age demos are even worse. How many "elite" under-30s do you know? Yet 73% of those voters want Biden to withdraw. and 72% each in 30-39YO and 40-49YO categories. In fact, the argument looks even sillier when viewing the educational demos, where two-thirds in every category wants Biden to exit the race. To simplify, the pollster combines these down into two categories: No College Degree 67%, College Degree 68%.

In fact, every demo except one has a majority of its respondents favoring a Biden withdrawal. The one demo that doesn't is black voters, but even there, a plurality of 49% want him out while only 47% want Biden to stay in the race.

So who is the target demo of the "elite" spin? Black voters, clearly, but it doesn't appear to be working there. One has to think that Team Biden thinks that message will play with younger voters too, but it's really not having any impact there.

On the other hand, the rest of the poll doesn't exactly look credible. Even the WaPo report scratches its head at the poll's topline result:

The poll finds Biden and former president Donald Trump in a dead heat in the contest for the popular vote, with both candidates receiving 46 percent support among registered voters. Those numbers are nearly identical to the results of an ABC-Ipsos poll in April.

That finding is at odds with some other recent public polls. Across eight other post-debate national polls tracked by The Post, Trump leads by 3.5 percentage points on average, compared with a one-point Trump edge in those same polls before the debate. Biden led Trump by between nine and 11 points in averages of public polls at this point in the campaign four years ago. He ended up winning by 4.5 points.

Er ... sure. The RCP aggregate average now encompasses only post-debate polling, and Trump leads by three points now, 47.2/44.2. Biden doesn't have a lead in any of the thirteen polls taken after the June 27 debate; only in this poll and in the Reuters poll (also conducted by Ipsos!) are the two tied. It's the biggest gap in the aggregate since February, when Biden needed a decent SOTU speech to reverse the momentum and largely failed to get it. The last time the aggregate polling showed a tie was almost a year ago. 

One has to wonder what Ipsos' methodology does to both the Reuters and WaPo/ABC polling to generate such questionable topline reports, such that even its client has to suggest it's an outlier. That it clearly is as the rest of the polling shows a moderate but still substantial shift in the electorate over the last two weeks. And given Biden's infirmities, there will be very little he or Democrats can do to reverse it.