I also don't think independents are basing their votes on which side has less bias. If they were, Hillary would have won, because the criticisms of her were so much pettier and inconsequential. The left and right literally criticised her for anything and everything, while Trump largely skated for things like sexual assault because it was only the left that gave a ####.
I'm all for honest critiques of policy, but petty critiques of word choices or painting someone as senile DOES influence the independents, and not in the positive way you think. They aren't sitting there thinking "wow, the left is really critical of Biden, they must be smart and non-partisan people for being so fair." They're thinking "wow, the left is really critical of Biden, obviously we need to be as concerned about Biden as we are about Trump." Independents generally lean one way or another (more Democrat) but the few that don't dislike both fairly equally. They're looking at who to dislike the least, or which independent candidate they can waste a vote on.
I'm critical of Trudeau, but it's because I don't like Trudeau. I would prefer the NDP/Singh, but I'm also not really worried about the risk of a McKay-run Conservative government, because that seems about the same as a Trudeau-run Liberal government to me. I'm not critical of Trudeau because I'm thinking "THIS will convince independents to vote for Trudeau!" That's insanely naive.
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