Rep. Scott Peters, D-Calif., said the Biden team has become “arrogant” since its shaky performance in last week’s presidential debate.
“I love Joe Biden, but he’s struggling in battleground states,” Peters said Wednesday. Interview with CBS 8 San Diego“We needed the momentum from Thursday, and we didn’t get it. And I think the campaign’s response was very arrogant.”
Biden’s performance in the first debate, in which the president struggled to gather his thoughts and counter many of former President Trump’s false statements, raised alarm among some Democrats and supporters, stoking discussion about whether Biden should end his presidential campaign and let another Democrat take on Trump.
Peters stopped short of saying he wanted to remove Biden from the running, as three other House Democrats have already done, but said it should be kept an option.
“we, [the Biden campaign’s] “Their plan is to win this election and turn these numbers around,” he said. “If they don’t have a plan, then I think we’re going to have to go in a different direction.”
Recent polls have Biden lagging behind Trump in most battleground states. A June poll before the debate showed Trump leading Biden by four points in Arizona and Georgia, three points in Wisconsin and Nevada, and two points in Pennsylvania. Trump had a one-point lead in Michigan, and the two were neck and neck in Minnesota.
A New York Times poll released Wednesday after the debate showed Trump had opened up a six-point lead nationally.
The Biden campaign has strongly denied any notion that he is dropping out of the race, and the president himself acknowledged in a radio interview Thursday that he “failed” during the debate but reiterated that he would continue to run.
“It was a bad night,” he told the Wisconsin station. “I messed up. I made mistakes. But I learned from my dad that you can get knocked down and get back up. And we’re going to win this election. Just like we did in 2020, we’re going to beat Donald Trump.”
Still, Peters said Biden needs to come up with a plan to compete in battleground states.
“What matters is winning the election. Joe Biden is behind in the 7 to 10 states that will decide this election,” he said. “We need a plan to win those states. If Joe Biden has a plan, I want to hear it. As soon as possible.”
