US President Joe Biden’s performance in Thursday’s Presidential debate set off a panic in Democratic circles, with calls for the 81-year-old to step aside growing exponentially. Meanwhile, Biden’s heir apparent, Vice President Kamala Harris, has nearly as low of an approval rating as Biden, causing many to call for an entirely new Democratic ticket.
Ever since President Biden announced last year that he would run again, those in his inner circle closed ranks and brushed off the obvious question: No, they insisted, he was not too old to seek re-election.
The news media, they said, was unfairly fixated on his age. Republicans were posting wildly distorted video clips on social media making him look more feeble than he actually is. Hand-wringing Democrats fretting over the prospect of an octogenarian president turning 86 by the end of a second term were just “bed-wetters.”
Then the debate happened. And now the days of denial at the White House are over. No longer can the president’s confidants simply wave away concerns about his capacity after his unsteady performance at Thursday night’s showdown with former President Donald J. Trump. Struggling to contain a brush fire of alarm within the Democratic Party, his team is now forced to confront the issue head on.
“President Biden had a very bad night. The worst part was that he reinforced the narrative about him, of being kind of this doddering old man who didn’t know where he was, couldn’t complete a sentence, kind of got lost midway through sentences, those sorts of things.” Robert Patillo II said, attorney and civil rights organizer.
Patillo described Biden’s performance as “Just an old man dying in front of us,” saying that “It got uncomfortable for people watching.”
The post-debate analysis, even on left-leaning MSNBC, focused heavily on finding a potential replacement for Biden, with the choices of Harris and California Governor Gavin Newsom being floated on the air.
Mr. Biden, 81, admitted himself on Friday that he is no longer a young man and that he has lost a step debating, even as he made a more forceful case for himself at an energized rally in Raleigh, N.C., than he had on the debate stage in Atlanta the night before. The Biden team seized on validation from Democratic allies like former President Barack Obama and Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina to reject calls on the president to cede the nomination to a younger candidate.
But many distressed Democrats, including some in his own administration, were left wondering how it had come to this and, fairly or not, faulted the president’s team for letting it happen: How could those closest to Mr. Biden not have talked him out of running? How could they have agreed to debate knowing that he might stumble so badly? How could they not have prepared him better for the predictable challenges during a week hidden away at Camp David?
“Last night was kind of shocking because we’d heard they’d been preparing and so on,” David Axelrod, who was a senior adviser to Mr. Obama, said the morning after the debate. “And the first 10 minutes were a disaster, and it’s hard to understand how that happened.” As it turned out, he added, “this was a great opportunity to allay people’s concerns and it had the opposite effect.”
The Biden campaign privately circulated data it had gathered from real-time focus groups suggesting swing voters also had strongly negative reactions to Trump’s performance on the debate stage.
“There is a lot of anger and disappointment. And there is a lot of people getting their hackles up and asking what more they can do. It is too early to know where the chips fall,” said one person involved in the campaign, who requested anonymity like others because they were not authorized to speak publicly. “The money is great, and will be today. That usually means something. I don’t know if it does today.”
Another senior Democratic strategist said everyone he has spoken to is in a “complete panic” and “trying to research the convention rules” on what would happen if Biden withdraws.
Many are concerned that the issue of age and cognitive capacity, which Biden’s performance Thursday raised again, may become a more fundamental barrier for voters than typical policy and temperament questions. “You can tack left, tack right, tack to the middle after a bad night,” he said. “When you’re just old, you can’t tack young. You can’t change the perception. You put it on display on TV in front of the whole country. You can’t fix that display. You can’t unpack that.”
The dismal debate performance heightened private worries among down-ballot Democrats who already considered Biden a drag on their races in purple and red states where the president is consistently polling behind Senate candidates.
As of Friday afternoon, the seven Democrats running in the most competitive Senate contests this fall had largely stayed silent or dodged questions on Biden’s debate performance.
When asked by a local news reporter if he should tell Biden to step aside, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said he was focused on his own race. “I’m not a pundit,” he said. Republican operatives quickly filled the void, highlighting past comments from Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mt.) and Brown defending Biden’s mental fitness and competence.
Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) called the debate performance “a serious setback” for Biden. “The pending question in the public about beating Trump is the age question,” Welch said. “Last night was his best opportunity to put that to rest. Instead he’s intensified it.”
He said if Biden performs badly in November it will create a “fierce undertow” for down-ballot candidates.
Some moderate House Democrats in tough races this fall are angry that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) dismissed reporters’ questions about whether Biden should step aside, according to people familiar with the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak freely about Biden and Democratic leaders.
“Members came away from it feeling like Hakeem gets their situation and is in sync with them that [swing district Democrats] cannot and will not be cheerleaders for Biden,” a person in the meeting said. “Mood from Hakeem and the members was not knives out for Biden. No discussion of a new nominee or pushing Biden to go … But Hakeem was pretty tepid in offering any defense of what happened.”
Scores of House Democrats were visibly angry Friday, with some privately suggesting exploring the idea of pushing Biden to step aside ahead of the Democratic National Convention in August. Most Democrats, including those in leadership, privately acknowledged that the caucus should put all their focus on regaining the House majority given that many are no longer as confident that Biden can win reelection.
“Hopefully we win the White House, hopefully we win the Senate, but the House is mandatory to win,” one House Democrat who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about Biden said. “We could be the thin Blue Line that is protecting our country from total chaos.”
Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said that even on Biden’s “worst night,” he was a better choice than Trump.
“He got off to a bad start,” she said. “I thought he came through okay on the issues later. But again, integrity versus dishonesty on his worst night, his values shone through much better than the other guy.”
Former president Barack Obama also weighed in with a social media post, asking supporters to stay the course.
“Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know,” Obama wrote, an apparent reference to his own debate stumble in 2012. “But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself.”
The Biden campaign announced they had raised $14 million on debate day and the hour after the debate was its best fundraising moment since the campaign launched. And Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester (D-Del.), a close ally of the president, said he had been suffering from a cold and his performance was not reflective of reality.
“It was not his best time, but it was one event,” said Rep Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.). “I don’t think the party will put [up] another person.” He added Biden had “weathered the storm” in the primary elections.
Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.), another top Biden ally, conceded the debate performance was poor, but said he expected to speak to Biden on Friday and tell him to “stay the course.”
He also brushed aside the idea of replacing the president. “There’s no better Democrat,” he said, and directed some advice to nervous Democrats: “Chill out.”
“I’m not about to defend the debate performance,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), the chair of the congressional Progressive Caucus. But she stressed that Biden had been elected in the primary by the voters and would be the Democrats’ candidate.
“It’s fancy-dance thinking to start talking about other people,” she said. “He is our candidate. He is our president.”
Rep. Annie Kuster (D-N.H.) said the party would remain united, with a strong bench of Democratic leaders who would continue to support the broader project. “I hope the president gets some rest. I hope he feels better,” Kuster said. “We’ve got a big fight ahead.”
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