President Joe Biden’s campaign released a memo Saturday arguing that the octogenarian’s disappointing performance in the first 2024 presidential debate “did not change the course of the race.”
The Hill Reports Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon sent a letter saying it was time to move forward.
A preliminary poll from CNN, 538, SurveyUSA, Morning Consult and Data for Progress showed the expected results: the debate did nothing to change the race.
That mirrors what internal campaign polling after the debate showed: the president maintained his popularity among 2020 voters, and voters’ opinions have not changed.
The memo runs counter to the view held by many in the media and political establishment, including Democrats, that Biden’s reelection over former President Donald Trump was a complete disaster.
He faltered, he vagued facts, and at times seemed completely disengaged from the task at hand.
Related: What was that? After a week of rest and preparation, Biden coughed, stumbled and rambled his way through the debate
Courtesy of CNN Presidential Debate
The poor performance came after Biden spent a week in self-isolation with his team to prepare for the challenges of “debate camp,” Breitbart News reported.
“It’s a familiar story: After Thursday night’s debate, Washington voters are counting out Joe Biden,” O’Malley Dillon continued in the memo.
She argued that “in every key metric, the data shows that nothing has done to change the perception of the American people. Our supporters are more fired up than ever, Donald Trump has simply failed to remind voters why they fired him four years ago, and to expand his support beyond his MAGA base.”
A poster of US President Joe Biden with the word “Failure” emblazoned on his face is seen as people wait for former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to speak during a campaign rally at Historic Greenbriar Farms in Chesapeake, Virginia, on July 28, 2024. (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
A protester holds a sign outside a fundraiser for U.S. President Joe Biden in East Hampton, New York, Saturday, June 29, 2024. (Amanda L. Gordon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The calls for Democrats to remain calm come as concerns grow among party leaders that Biden’s campaign and Democratic National Committee leaders are not taking the fallout from the president’s poor debate performance seriously enough, according to the Associated Press.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign chairman Julie Chavez Rodriguez held a conference call Saturday afternoon with dozens of committee members from around the country, made up of the party’s most influential members.
They largely ignored Biden’s weak performance and the torrent of criticism that has grown since then.
