U.S. President Joe Biden is racing to rescue his embattled candidacy against a rising tide of pressure for him to withdraw.
He will meet with worried Democratic state governors on Wednesday. Then, in the coming days, he will conduct a rare sit-down television interview, hold a formal news conference and visit two swing states.
Biden’s immediate task: Quell an internal rebellion before it reaches a tipping point that makes his candidacy unsustainable.
Dismay within his party over his befuddled debate performance has had more staying power than he hoped for.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s performance during the first presidential debate against Donald Trump of the 2024 election campaign has raised questions from supporters and critics alike about whether Biden should withdraw from the race. Andrew Chang zeroes in on the critical moments that may have lost Biden the debate — and possibly his base.
Anonymous grumbling in the immediate aftermath of last Thursday’s debate has given away to more public comments now — some urging him to quit, some offering gentler hints and some dismissing his shot at victory.
Discontent within Democratic party
From within his own party, on Tuesday alone, one Democratic congressman suggested Biden withdraw, as did a candidate. Another congressman declared him electorally dead.
“I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw,” Democrat Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas said in a statement, making himself the first sitting congressman within the party to put his name to such a request.
“I respectfully call on him to do so.”
Such comments on Tuesday called into question, perhaps for the first time, Biden’s ability to ride out the post-debate storm.
In Colorado, a Democratic congressional candidate who nearly unseated hard-right incumbent Lauren Boebert two years ago, and is running again, urged the president to withdraw.
“Only in politics is stating the obvious rarely done,” Adam Frisch said in a video statement. “We deserve better. President Biden should withdraw from this race.”
Former cabinet member Julian Castro said something similar: “There are stronger options out there for Democrats. We have a stable of folks that I think could do a better job,” Castro, who sat in Barack Obama’s cabinet, told MSNBC.
“I think Democrats would do well to find a different candidate.”
Democratic congressman: ‘Trump is going to win’
A Democratic congressman in Maine wrote an op-ed predicting a Biden defeat: “Donald Trump is going to win. And I’m OK with that,” said Jared Golden, calling fears for the future of democracy overblown.
To be clear, this conflicts wildly with what most Democrats are saying. Others call his victory essential in an election where Trump talks of punishing domestic enemies.
As Democrats reeled in the wake of the debate, the U.S. Supreme Court threw up another obstacle for Biden: In a 6-3 ruling, the justices ruled that Trump can’t be prosecuted for actions that were within his constitutional powers as president. Some have noted that the decision might have just made it impossible to hold Trump legally accountable for his attempt to steal the 2020 presidential election.
The line from other Democrats is that this race is too important to lose. One offered a none-too-subtle hint that the president could help by stepping aside.
Rep. Mike Quigley said voters are worried. And while Biden, he said, has had a truly successful presidency, loaded with legislative achievements, he struggled to prosecute the case against Trump on a debate stage.
The Illinois congressman suggested Biden might no longer be up to the task of campaigning, and might be a drag on the entire Democratic ticket.
“We have to be honest with ourselves that it wasn’t just a horrible night. But I won’t go beyond that, out of my respect … [for] Joe Biden,” Quigley told CNN.
“It’s his decision. I just want him to appreciate at this time just how much it impacts not just his race, but all of the other [congressional and state] races coming in November.”
Biden’s plan: Meetings, media events, campaign stops
Even Biden’s public supporters sound nervous.
Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, told MSNBC that it’s imperative for the president to get out and do some long, tough, unfiltered interviews to quell the notion that he’s too cognitively feeble for his job.
“No holds barred. Any questions. Just sit there and be Joe. Show your values, show your knowledge,” Pelosi told MSNBC.
“I think that is essential.”
One such interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos will air Friday. Biden is also heading to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania at the end of the week. He also meets Wednesday at the White House with state governors, then will hold a news conference at next week’s NATO summit.
A day after his disastrous debate performance prompted calls for him to step aside, Joe Biden delivered a fiery campaign speech in North Carolina aggressively attacking Donald Trump while acknowledging his own age and shortcomings.
Even in that rescue mission, there are signs of trouble. When he is in Wisconsin on Friday, a Democratic senator up for re-election, Tammy Baldwin, will reportedly not appear with Biden , after saying she’s running her own, independent race.
But Biden still has the backing of one of his most crucial early supporters.
Congressman James Clyburn, whose endorsement helped Biden win the critical 2020 South Carolina primary, said Biden still has support from most of the party.
He said the grassroots still likes him, and, Clyburn said, he’s only heard directly from one colleague in Congress who wants Biden gone.
And if Biden quits the race? Clyburn would back U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris as the nominee. While it’s less than ideal for the sitting president to have lawmakers publicly engaging in such speculation, he insisted he hopes this doesn’t happen.
“I will support her if [Biden] were to step aside,” Clyburn told MSNBC. “But I want to support her going forward at some time in [an election in] the future.”
The Kamala Harris question
It’s unclear that Harris would perform better than Biden in an election. For several years, she’s been roughly as unpopular, or more unpopular, than her boss. and her past presidential campaign never caught fire.
But two new polls show her performing marginally better than the president against Trump: one CNN survey that showed Biden six points behind Trump, and a leaked internal Democratic poll that shows Biden badly behind in the major swing states.
In the CNN survey, Harris also performs a touch better than other Democrats, just two points behind Trump, but in the internal poll other potential alternatives – governors Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan and Gavin Newsom of California and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg – fare better than her.
All this points to a potential problem in replacing Biden: the competition to succeed him could plunge the party into bitter, messy uncertainty.
The point was unwittingly underscored in an amusing, if unintended fashion, even in that statement from Doggett, the first from a congressman calling for Biden to withdraw.
In that statement, he noted that he serves in a congressional district once held by Lyndon Johnson; he pointed out that, as president, facing a backlash from within his own party, Johnson made the painful decision not to seek re-election in 1968.
“Biden should do the same,” Doggett wrote.
That statement neglects to mention what happened next. The Democratic Party tore itself apart at the summer convention, there was chaos in the streets as anti-war protesters were clubbed by police, and the party was drummed out of office, locked out of the White House for 20 of the ensuing 24 years.