BRAVE SIR ROBIN BRAVELY TURNED AND FLED: Alarmed Democrats flee Biden’s ailing brand in battleground states.

“If you go out there and do a focus group, the focus groups all say, ‘He’s 200 years old. You got to be kidding me.’ And the worst part about it is for unaffiliated voters or people that haven’t made up their mind, they look at this and say: ‘You have to be kidding us. These are our choices?’ And they indict us for not taking it seriously,” said a Democratic senator who requested anonymity to discuss the alarm sparked by Biden’s weak poll numbers in battleground states.

Polls have shown that 40 percent of registered voters in battleground states were not too satisfied or not at all satisfied with the candidates in the presidential election.

The senator said Democratic colleagues “know this is a problem” but also realize it’s too late to do anything about it and that “this is the ticket we have to get behind and we have to win with this ticket.”

“We’ll see how much gravity we can defy,” the lawmaker said of senators in tough races who are polling better than Biden.

A second Democratic senator when asked about Biden’s poll numbers said that the president’s age is a persistent concern among voters.

“Biden’s showing his age in ways weirdly more than Trump,” said the senator, who noted that Trump, who is 77, is only four years younger than Biden, 81.

“People keep saying, ‘Why didn’t he take a pass he’s just so tired?’” the senator said of constituents who are baffled over Biden’s decision to run for a second term. “That is such a prevalent feeling.”

Even in a story about Biden’s troubles specifically and the Democrats generally, the first third is mostly “BUT TRUMP!” The Hill has to bring its readers over to the truth as gently as possible.

I’d just add that if Trump has maybe lost half a step over the last three years, Biden has been on the decline for much longer — and started with far fewer steps he could afford to lose.