I think Trump's going to demolish him in a debate. I think he'll sink to 30% in the polls. And then the Democrats will find a way to give him a graceful out, and then they'll field somebody else.View on YouTube
As of November 30, 2025, enough time has passed to judge this prediction, and most of the core scenario Jason sketched out did occur, though one quantitative detail (the "30%" figure) was off.
1. “Trump’s going to demolish him in a debate.” – Largely accurate
The first 2024 Biden–Trump debate took place on June 27, 2024. Post-debate polling and later reporting consistently describe Biden’s performance as disastrous and Trump as clearly outperforming him:
- A 538/Ipsos poll of debate watchers found about 60% said Trump performed best vs. 21% for Biden, and 73% rated Biden’s performance as poor or terrible, while only 8% said it was good or excellent. (ipsos.com)
- Subsequent analyses and campaign books routinely refer to the debate as a “nationally televised disaster” for Biden and a pivotal moment that triggered panic inside the Democratic Party. (politico.com)
That matches the spirit of “demolish” in terms of perceived performance, even though some analysts cautioned that Trump’s showing wasn’t objectively strong on its own.
2. “He’ll sink to 30% in the polls.” – Incorrect
Whether you interpret this as overall job approval or vote intention, Biden’s numbers never dropped to ~30%:
- National job-approval series (Gallup, Marquette, AP–NORC, etc.) have Biden mostly in the high‑30s to low‑40s through 2024. For example, Gallup recorded 38% approval around this period, and Marquette’s national polling had him at roughly 35–40%, with a low of about 34% later in 2024 – still above 30. (law.marquette.edu)
- In head‑to‑head vote polls, Biden’s support also stayed around 40%, not 30%. The 538 national average moved from roughly a tie pre‑debate to Trump leading by about 1–2 points (e.g., Trump ~42%, Biden ~40%) after June 27. (goodmorningamerica.com)
So the specific numerical claim about “30% in the polls” did not materialize.
3. “Then the Democrats will give him a graceful out and field somebody else.” – Substantively correct
The rest of the scenario essentially unfolded as described:
- After weeks of intense internal pressure following the June 27 debate, Biden announced on July 21, 2024 that he was ending his re‑election bid, framing it as a decision taken “in the best interest of my party and the country” and saying he’d focus on serving out his term – a classic “graceful exit” letter. (time.com)
- In the same move, he formally endorsed Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee. (americamagazine.org)
- A YouGov snap poll the day of his withdrawal found 71% of Americans – including 70% of Democrats – approved of his decision to step aside, and 82% of Democrats supported his endorsement of Harris, indicating the party and broader public largely saw it as a legitimate, orderly handoff rather than a messy ouster. (today.yougov.com)
- Harris then became the Democratic nominee (formally at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August 2024), i.e., the party “fielded somebody else” in Biden’s place. (en.wikipedia.org)
Overall assessment
Jason correctly anticipated the structure and outcome of events: a debate in which Trump was widely perceived to outperform Biden, followed by Democratic elites engineering a dignified way for Biden to withdraw and replacing him with another nominee. The one clear miss was the specific claim that Biden’s support would crash to around 30%, which did not happen. Because the main causal story and end state he forecast did occur (disastrous debate → intra‑party pressure → Biden’s graceful exit → new Democratic candidate), the overall prediction is best classified as right, with a notable but secondary numerical inaccuracy.