The phrase that viewers used to explain how Joe Biden made them really feel

These are not the feelings you want to inspire in voters when you are the commander-in-chief of the greatest super power and are running for a second term: Concerned, worried, sad.

But those are the one-word verdicts of independent voters who watched Thursday night’s presidential debate, when Joe Biden, 81, delivered a disastrous performance, filled with verbal stumbles, silences and non-sequiturs.

His unsteady showing has put Democrats in a spin, with a string of leading figures now asking whether a new candidate can be installed ahead of November’s election.

And an exclusive poll for DailyMail.com shows just how much Biden bombed in the eyes of independents, the group that will most likely decide who lives at the White House for the next four years.

Some 805 people were asked to describe in a word or two how listening to Biden made them feel.

Their words are more reminiscent of a worried relative talking about a grandparent in decline rather than the most powerful person in the world.

Expressions of concern dominated the results. Frustrated, embarrassed, uneasy, disappointed were all words that also featured.

But the overwhelmingly sense was of viewers worried about the president or about the future of the country.

In contrast, the term that dominated former President Donald Trump’s word cloud was ‘hopeful.’

However, his blustering style, refusing to initially say whether he would accept the results of November’s election and the way he spewed falsehoods, insults and exaggerations, was deeply polarizing.

After ‘hopeful,’ the next most popular words were, ‘angry,’ and ‘annoyed.’

Joe Alder, senior research associate at J.L. Partners, said it was hard to imagine a worse set of results for Biden.   

‘Looking at the emotions independents were feeling listening to Joe Biden, the picture is unremittingly negative: ‘bored’, ‘concerned’, ‘sad’, ‘worried’, ‘confused’, ‘scared’,’ he said. 

‘Understanding voters’ emotional responses is critical to understanding their behaviour—and independents, listening to Joe Biden last night, felt bored, scared, or sad. 

‘That is not a promising state of affairs for Democrats.’

Biden, the oldest president in history, began badly, struggling to clear his throat and make himself heard.

Things went from bad to worse quickly when he muddled his words as he tried to set out his vision of an America where everyone paid their fair share of taxes in order to support the poorest in society, and his words ground to a halt. 

He looked every one of his 81 years. 

Trump, 78, was able to land his punches while his Democratic opponent struggled to push back on some of his more outlandish claims. 

‘I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence,’ he said after Biden delivered a word salad about the border. 

‘I don’t think he knows what he said either.’ 

Independent viewers agreed. When they were asked for their one-word assessment of how Biden came across, the most popular words were: Old, slow, lost and confused.

Trump’s words were: Confident, arrogant, strong, and liar. 

There was a crumb of comfort for Team Biden in that verdict, said Alder.

‘While there are negative undertones to some of those words, it is hard to imagine Trump’s team being greatly concerned, as they present such a clear contrast with Joe Biden,’ he said. 

‘The word that perhaps should worry Trump is ‘liar’. 

‘Joe Biden repeatedly hammered the line that Trump was telling lies, and it seems that this cut through to independent voters.’

It was not enough to win the debate. The DailyMail.com poll found that 68 percent of independents thought that Trump came out on top.

And 62 percent said Biden should be dumped off the Democratic ticket altogether.