WASHINGTON — Chairman Joe BidenThe re-election campaign tried to convince his top fundraisers on Monday that his weak debate performance on Thursday would not hurt his candidacy and that he can recover, according to a recording of a conference call made by a participant and obtained by NBC News.
During the conference call, senior Biden campaign officials admitted that Biden missed an opportunity to improve his chances, but that voters who followed the debate also came away with deep doubts about the former presidential nominee. President Donald Trump.
“I’ll start with what we all know, but we’re also seeing it in our own polls: The president underperformed in Thursday’s debate,” Biden pollster Molly Murphy said on the call. “He’s been outspoken about that, and it’s showing up in our polls. We’re looking at it. We’re not ignoring that, and we want to understand what that means for voters.”
The call was intended to assuage fears that have gripped Democrats since Biden took the debate stage with a hoarse voice and repeatedly failed to articulate his thoughts fully or coherently.
The officials read out loud tough questions from the donors, asking about the quality of Biden’s preparation for the debate and whether he is capable of serving another term.
Biden’s campaign manager, Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, cited the medical tests he has undergone in office. Biden’s doctor summarized his health in a six-page report in February, declaring him “fit for duty” despite a host of chronic ailments, including sleep apnea and a stiff gait.
Biden did not undergo a cognitive test, his spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said at the time, adding that none was necessary.
During the call, O’Malley Dillon said Biden is “probably in better health than most of us.”
“He’s also 81,” O’Malley Dillon said, “and he knows he has to prove he can do this job from a place of endurance, but also from a place of substance.”
One donor told NBC News he was not convinced by the campaign’s reassurances and that if Biden remains in the race, they will redirect their money to outside voter organizations.
“I won’t sit on the sidelines, but it is difficult and becoming increasingly difficult to donate directly to the campaign given their judgment,” the donor said.
The donor added that they were irritated by the campaign’s attempts to blame poor post-debate polling on an exaggerated media narrative, calling the effort “pretty Trumpian.”
After the debate, many Democratic officials and strategists are privately weighing whether Biden should remain on the ticket or step aside in favor of a younger candidate who might have a better chance of beating Trump. So far, Biden has shown no sign of abandoning his candidacy.
A Democratic congressman told NBC News that “there’s only one person who will have influence on that decision: Jill Biden“, the first lady said.
As for the campaign staff, “they are all narrow-minded and don’t care what others think,” said the lawmaker, who requested anonymity to discuss internal party deliberations.
One message the campaign wanted to send to fundraisers is that Trump’s debate performances were hardly a triumph. During the 90-minute debate, the campaign tested the responses of a group of undecided Midwestern voters to gauge how they felt about the answers. The so-called “dial tests” revealed that this segment of the electorate “didn’t like hearing from Trump” and found Biden to be the more likable of the two, Murphy said.
“They don’t like what he stands for,” she said of Trump. “They don’t like being reminded of the way he governed when he was president.”
Trump, she continued, “had a bad debate on the substance.”
A memo from another pollster, Geoff Garin, to the campaign said a survey of registered voters in seven key states found that “a large majority” of those who voted for Biden in 2020 and didn’t like his performance at the debate still planned to vote for him.
The officials said Biden will participate in a second debate, scheduled for September. Asked what might change in Biden’s preparations for the debate, they did not directly answer the question.
O’Malley Dillon noted that it’s not uncommon for sitting presidents to stumble in their first general election debate. She referenced former President Barack Obama’s struggles in his first debate with Republican opponent Mitt Romney in 2012.
She said during the call that “every sitting president I can remember in my lifetime has had a lousy first debate.”
“Of course the stakes are higher for us because we’re going up against Donald Trump,” she continued. “Of course we have more work to do because the president is 81, but it was also a terrible debate in 2012. I was there. I remember it vividly.”
Obama recovered and was re-elected.
The officials argued that Biden’s path could be the same.
“We’re in June,” O’Malley Dillon said. “We know we have time to continue to reach out to people very clearly and we’re going to use every element we have to do that. We also know that Donald Trump will have nothing compared to what this campaign is building in the states. He’s not traveling. He’s not out with volunteers. He’s not talking about the issues that matter to people.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
