Many Democrats now find themselves in a perverse position where seemingly good news for Biden (a decent press conference on Thursday and a strong poll on Friday) looks like bad news for his prospects of winning the election.
“He did the best he could last night, and on foreign policy he was very assertive,” David Axelrod, who served as a political adviser to former President Obama, said in an interview Friday. “But anything that encourages him to believe that his situation is not dire, relative to this election, is not necessarily good news.”
Early reviews of Biden’s Thursday press conference were mixed. Voters who watched the full 59 minutes — particularly his supporters — saw a foreign affairs veteran who could speak with authority about the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, with a few rambles in between. But far more people likely saw viral clips of him calling former President Trump vice president (rather than Kamala Harris) and, in the hours leading up to it, introducing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Russian President Vladimir Putin, the man who invaded his country.
“My God, when he has a press conference where he confuses Zelensky with Putin and Trump with Kamala Harris and everyone says, 'Great job!' that's bullshit,” said Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.).
Smith, one of the most senior Democrats to call on Biden to step down, said he remains deeply respectful of the president and his administration but is increasingly concerned that people around him have “fought dirty” and “aggressively” to prevent a serious conversation because they are more interested in their personal fate than in keeping former President Trump out of the White House.
“The bar for what is considered good for Joe Biden has been lowered considerably for about 20% of the country, and that 20% are die-hard Joe Biden fans no matter what,” he said. “The bar has not been lowered at all for the other 80% of the country.”
Biden again sounded at Thursday’s news conference like a man determined to stay in the race, even as the number of Democrats in Congress calling for him to drop out grew to about 20 and polls continue to show majorities in both parties want him to step aside.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York told House Democrats in a letter Friday that he had met privately with Biden after the news conference to convey his concerns, a sign that the pressure on Biden has not eased. Biden, hoping to prevent further defections, participated in two virtual meetings Friday with members of the congressional Hispanic and Asian Pacific caucuses.
“The group of members who are pretty close to breaking away” and asking Biden to step aside “is pretty significant,” said Rep. Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael.
Huffman called for a “course correction” after the debate performance two weeks ago, which she said she has not yet seen, but stopped short of directly urging Biden to withdraw.
“Denying that we have a problem, wishing it would go away, is not the solution,” he said. “Pretending that we can continue doing more of the same is not the solution. If we really believe that this is the most important election of our lives and that we have to win it, we have to be more prudent and sober.”
Rep. Mike Levin of San Juan Capistrano became the latest Democratic lawmaker to join the group on Friday.
Following his disastrous performance in the debate, Biden said it would take “the Lord Almighty” to prevent him from running for re-election.
On Thursday, he changed that stance, saying he would leave only if his advisers told him “there's no way I can win.”
Then, in a dramatic whisper, he added: “Nobody says that. No poll says that.”
On Friday, that claim was somewhat confirmed. A new Marist poll conducted for NPR and PBS showed Biden leading Trump 50% to 48% among registered voters nationally. But other polls have shown Trump with larger leads, nationally and by wider margins in key swing states. And Biden barely won the electoral college vote in 2020 despite winning the popular vote by 4 percentage points.
Biden on Thursday dismissed the polls as inaccurate, but Axelrod and others argued they can’t be dismissed, especially when political pundits and others who have analyzed a variety of data, including focus groups, see a much darker picture amid concerns about Biden’s age that have “metastasized” to the point where Trump is no longer the central issue in the race.
“The test can’t be, ‘Can he win?’ The test has to be, ‘What are the odds that he wins?’ and the odds aren’t good,” Axelrod said. “I think the people around him know the truth.”
Smith made a similar argument, asking whether a basketball team would want a 30% free throw shooter at the line with the game on the line instead of a 90% shooter.
But it all depends on Biden, and not everyone believes his problems are irremediable or that the path to a possible replacement will be any easier. His allies have tried to send the message that his worst problems are behind him.
“Sometimes presidents have bad debates, and I promise you he’ll have a better second debate,” Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff, said Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Biden’s favorite cable news show.
But even if Biden resists high-level pressure to leave office long enough to prevent a replacement, he will have to dig deep, said Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic strategist.
“The challenge is the next 115 days; every day is a test that Joe Biden has to pass,” Marsh said. “If it weren’t for the debate performance, we would have looked at a press conference like last night, calling Harris Trump, and we would have laughed.”
