President Biden and his aides are on the defensive as they face calls to consider dropping out of the 2024 presidential race following his poor performance with former President Trump in Thursday night’s debate.
The White House and Biden himself have said at fundraisers and on social media that the president has no plans to drop out of the race, while Democratic lawmakers have generally signaled support for Biden continuing to serve as their standard-bearer.
Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina, a key ally who helped Biden win the 2000 South Carolina primary, blamed Biden’s poor debate performance on overpreparation.
“Certainly it was a poor performance. I’ve seen this before. I’ve been involved in debate preparation before, and I know what happens when there’s what’s called over-preparation, and that’s exactly what happened,” Clyburn said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The White House strongly denied an NBC News report that the Biden family was meeting at Camp David on Sunday to discuss the future of the campaign. The gathering was centered around a family photoshoot by photographer Annie Leibovitz and was not about whether Biden should withdraw from the campaign, according to sources inside and outside the campaign.
“This is 100% media-inspired bullshit,” deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty wrote on X.
While Biden’s fate will ultimately rest with his own decision, Democrats have signaled they are prepared to support him as their nominee.
But the big question remains what kind of pressure Biden will face to back down, especially as Democrats contemplate the possibility of losing the White House and their Senate majority, which could give Republicans more of a chance to confirm a conservative Supreme Court justice.
Some Democrats have acknowledged the debate and at least spoken about the possibility that Biden may not be the nominee.
“Obviously, there were big issues with Joe Biden’s performance in the debate, and there’s a lot of love and affection for Joe Biden in our party,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) said Sunday on MSNBC’s “Belshi.” Raskin argued that Biden was “back on a roll” in North Carolina, where he held a rally on the Friday following the debate.
“So we’re having serious conversations about what to do. One thing I can say is that regardless of what President Biden decides, our party will be united and our party needs him at the center of our campaign discussions,” Raskin said, scolding Republicans who continue to support former President Trump despite his legal troubles.
“So, [Biden’s] “Whoever the nominee is, he will be the keynote speaker at our convention. He will be someone we can rally around to move us forward and defeat the forces of authoritarianism and reaction at home.”
Former Minneapolis Mayor and former Democratic National Committee Vice Chairman R.T. Ryback wrote a lengthyPost to Facebook He argued that elected officials have been “stunnedly silent” publicly about Biden’s transition for fear of political retribution.
“It is not too late to select a new candidate. We will hold two forums for candidates who meet our criteria, conduct a poll, and have the delegates choose,” Rybak wrote.
“I can tell you from my experience as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee that without a major push from the American people right now, including you and me, this is not likely to happen,” he continued.
But Democrats say replacing Biden would be an extremely difficult process that would further divide the party. “It would be difficult to replace him at this point,” one official said.
The confusion led Democrats to express concern over the weekend about where the race is headed, even as many donors adopted a wait-and-see strategy, waiting to see how post-debate polls turned out.
“The fact is, we’re losing, and we’re losing big,” said a Democratic strategist. “They may say, ‘Oh, it was a bad night,’ but there’s a perception among voters that this guy’s not even old. He just doesn’t mean it. And that hurts. You can sugar coat it all you want, but that’s the truth.”
“People will be paying more attention to his every move,” the strategist said.
A person close to the Biden campaign said the president has no plans to step down from office. Instead, he will campaign harder to prove doubters wrong, the person said.
“He still firmly believes he is the best person to defeat Donald Trump,” a person close to the campaign said.
A memo from campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon dismissed “politicians in Washington” for abandoning Biden after the debate, and the campaign pointed to $33 million raised in the 72 hours around the debate as proof donor support had not dried up.
Anita Dunn, one of Biden’s senior advisers, said on MSNBC on Saturday that there had been no discussion about dropping out of the race and that the focus was on “what to do next.”
Thursday’s debate was seen as a key moment in the presidential race, largely because the president’s campaign had been pushing for an early debate to throw some weight around the race: Trump had been narrowly leading Biden in battleground states for months, and the campaign saw the debate as an opportunity to remind voters of Trump’s chances of reelection.
Biden’s stumbling performance sparked full-blown panic as the debate progressed, and despite efforts by some Democratic leaders to calm it, that continued through the weekend.
For example, former President Obama joked that “sometimes debates go horribly,” but that didn’t make a difference in the outcome of the election.
Clyburn said on CNN on Sunday that he thought Biden would have no problem leading the country for the next four years, saying, “He’s provided incredible leadership over the last three and a half years.”
These assurances come after commentators such as the editorial board of The New York Times, the editorial board of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough called on Biden to drop out of the race.
The Biden campaign has ignored pundits and editorial boards since the 2020 election, when it argued that the Washington media was underestimating voter support for then-candidate Biden, a stance that was on full display again in the face of headlines about its withdrawal from the race.
“If we see a shift in the polls over the next few weeks, it would not be the first time that exaggerated media coverage has led to a temporary drop in the polls,” O’Malley Dillon wrote in a memo distributed to reporters.
Post-debate polls showed mixed results for the Biden campaign: A Morning Consult poll conducted within hours of the debate asked respondents to choose between the two and showed Biden still leading Trump 45-44.
A CBS News poll conducted Friday and Saturday found that 27% of respondents said Biden was mentally strong enough to serve as president, down from 35% in early June. The poll also found that 50% of voters said Trump was mentally strong enough to serve as president, but did not ask which candidate they would vote for.
Miranda Nazzaro contributed.
