While some Democrats are considering potential successors if Biden withdraws from the party’s nomination, Biden’s White House communications director, Kate Bedingfield, believes the atmosphere surrounding the 2024 presidential race is much the same as it was before last Thursday’s debate.
“The reality is that the race hasn’t fundamentally changed,” Bedingfield said on a CNN panel on Sunday morning, acknowledging Biden’s inferiority complex against Trump.
“I think there is universal agreement [it] “It wasn’t a great night for Joe Biden, he said so. But all the data that’s come out since Thursday shows that the fundamental conflicts haven’t changed. People aren’t suddenly going to Trump.”
Bill Maher speaks frankly to Democrats about Biden: “He’s going to lose, that’s obvious.”
President Joe Biden looks down as he participates in the first presidential debate of the 2024 election with former U.S. president and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump at CNN studios in Atlanta, Georgia, June 27, 2024. (Andrew Caballero Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images)
She also argued that voters did not find Trump’s arguments persuasive, with many concerned about his answers to questions about the “sensitive” topic of the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, and that they might be reluctant to accept the results of the November election.
“He really did himself a huge disservice on Thursday night. [with his answers on those topics]” she continued.
“The thing for Biden to do now is go out there and do what he did in North Carolina and show that energy and show that it was just a bad night. Every campaign bounces back from a bad night…”
Republican pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson, who also appeared on Sunday’s panel, said it was more than just a “bad night.”
“The idea that this is just a one-night nightmare, that voters are being asked not to believe what they saw with their own eyes on Thursday, I don’t understand that,” she said.
Biden debate debacle: 10 surprising media reactions, from MSNBC panic to ‘The View’ calls for change
Former President Donald Trump was deemed the “clear winner” in a flash CNN poll following last Thursday’s debate with Biden. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
“In fact, the Pew Research Center found in January that only 29% of Americans thought Joe Biden was intelligent enough to become president, yet the race was still close.
“It just doesn’t make sense to me, but on Thursday night the American people got to see for themselves what was going on inside the White House and it was like a huge political earthquake. What we saw was horrifying, but it may not change the polls because voters may have already been thinking on Thursday, ‘This is who Joe Biden is already and they’ve already made that calculation,'” she added.
When asked for comment, the Biden campaign contacted Fox News Digital. NoteThis seems somewhat consistent with what both panelists said about the lack of change they saw after the debate: “It’s a familiar story: Washington voters are writing Joe Biden off after Thursday night’s debate. But the data from battleground states tells a different story.”
“Across every metric that matters, the data shows it has done nothing to change the American people’s perception. Our supporters are more fired up than ever. Donald Trump has failed to remind voters why they fired him four years ago and to expand his support beyond his MAGA base,” it reads in part.
Biden reportedly humiliated and lacking confidence after debate performance: “It was a mess”
Democrats have been in a state of panic since Biden’s disastrous performance in last week’s debate, with many calling for Biden to step down and for another prominent Democrat — perhaps California Governor Gavin Newsom or former first lady Michelle Obama — to succeed him as the party’s nominee ahead of a showdown with former President Trump in November.
A CNN poll released during the broadcast said 67% of debate viewers believed Trump was the clear winner of the debate, compared with 33% for Biden.
By comparison, a similar early poll in 2020 found that 55% of voters said Biden won the debate, compared to 39% who said Trump did.
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