“Biden is about to face a crescendo of calls to step aside,” said a veteran Democratic strategist who has staunchly backed Biden publicly. “Joe had a deep well of affection among Democrats. It has run dry.”
“Parties exist to win,” this Democrat continued. “The man on the stage with Trump cannot win. The fear of Trump stifled criticism of Biden. Now that same fear is going to fuel calls for him to step down.”
Biden’s goal in accepting an early general election debate was to recalibrate the contest as a choice between him and a felon who tried to overturn an election and would destroy American democracy if given the power of the presidency again. Biden left the CNN studio in Atlanta instead facing a referendum on himself and his capacity that will reverberate for days if not longer.
Trump, 78, appeared to coast through the debate with little trouble, even as he rattled off one falsehood after another without being effectively challenged. He appeared confident while avoiding the same excessively overbearing demeanour that damaged him during his first debate with Biden in 2020, seemingly content to let his opponent stew in his own difficulties.
“Guys, the Dems should nominate someone else – before it’s too late,” Andrew Yang, who ran against Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2020, wrote on social media before the debate had ended, adding a hashtag #swapJoeout.
Van Jones, a former White House aide to President Barack Obama and a leading liberal voice, predicted there would be a renewed discussion of that. “There’s a lot of people who are going to want to see him consider taking a different course now,” Jones told CNN after the debate.
Online discussion was filled with similar assessments within the first half-hour of the showdown. “Sorry, I’m voting for President Biden but this is a disaster so far,” wrote Mike Murphy, an anti-Trump Republican. He added: “On a 1 to 10 point scale – if this continues – the panic explosion inside the Democratic Party will hit 28 [tomorrow].”
Alyssa Farah Griffin, a former White House aide to Trump who broke with him, said: “It’s worse than I believe most people imagined.”
Biden’s advisers have long rejected any discussion of him dropping out, dismissing such talk as unjustified nervousness even as he has trailed Trump in the battleground states he needs for victory. Biden aides and allies have repeatedly challenged the polls and pointed out that predictions of Democratic defeats in recent elections have been overblown.
No incumbent president has dropped out of the race so late in the campaign cycle and there is little consensus about what would happen if he were to do so. After the debate, Democrats were imagining scenarios that would require party elders such as New York Senator Chuck Schumer, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and South Carolina Congressman James Clyburn to intervene with the president, although there was no indication that any of them would agree.
Other Democrats said they feared that it was too late and that Biden would not listen to anyone other than perhaps his wife, Jill, who has strongly supported another run. The president’s team ended the evening knowing that the task of the next few days will be to quieten such talk and rally the party behind their besieged leader.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Peter Baker
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
