ATLANTA (AP) — Above all, Joe Biden’s allies wanted him to show his strength and energy on the debate stage Thursday night to answer questions about the 81-year-old Democrat’s physical and mental acuity.
But on the biggest stage of American politics, Biden fell short of their modest expectations.
And by the end of the 90-minute showdown, the Democratic president’s allies — both party strategists and rank-and-file voters — were in total panic after a debate performance punctuated by repeated stumbling, awkward pauses and a quiet speaking style. that was often difficult to understand. Publicly and privately, Democrats wondered whether the party could or should replace him as the party’s presidential nominee this fall against 78-year-old former President Donald Trump.
“I’m not the only one whose heart is breaking right now. There are a lot of people who watched this tonight and felt terribly for Joe Biden,” former Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill said on MSNBC. “I don’t know if there are things that can be done to fix this.”
The biggest question now for Biden is whether the damage is permanent. Many voters haven’t tuned in for an election that’s still more than four months away. The president and his allies are sitting on millions of dollars still to be spent on advertising and infrastructure in swing states. And there’s precedent for recovering from poor debate performances, including Barack Obama’s recovery from a lopsided meeting with Mitt Romney in 2012. Democrat John Fetterman defeated a Republican rival in 2022 after struggling through a debate several months after suffering a stroke.
Biden’s gamble
Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign was always predicated on the gamble that voters would ultimately support an 81-year-old politician with a weak approval rating in a rematch that few Americans want. Despite such imperatives, Biden’s team insisted he was uniquely positioned to prevent Trump from returning to the White House — just as he did four years ago.
They have long predicted that Biden’s winning political coalition would eventually embrace the Democratic president, given ample reminders of Trump’s chaotic leadership. But there have been few signs of such confidence in the wake of Biden’s disappointing debate performance.
“It was a slow start. That’s clear to everyone. I’m not going to debate that,” Vice President Kamala Harris said on CNN after the debate. “I’m talking about the choice in November. I’m talking about one of the most important elections in our collective lives.”
Biden’s surrogates slowly entered the post-debate spin room in Atlanta. And when they finally emerged, they largely dodged questions from the press. Instead, they railed against Trump’s long list of debate falsehoods. Among them, Trump did not disavow those who attacked the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a potential future presidential candidate and Biden’s most prominent surrogate in the Atlanta spin room, urged Democrats not to panic.
“I don’t think it helps. And I think it’s unnecessary. We’ve got to go in, we’ve got to hold our heads high,” Newsom said in an interview on MSNBC. “We need this president’s back. You don’t return because of one performance. What kind of party does that?”
Signs of fear
Still, signs of fear were visible as Democrats began openly encouraging the party to find an alternative to Biden. Some party officials pointed to a social media post by former Obama campaign adviser Ravi Gupta.
“Every Democrat I know is texting that this is bad,” Gupta wrote on X. “Just say it publicly and start the hard work of creating space in the convention for a selection process. I’d rather vote for a corpse than Trump, but this is a suicide mission.”
Under the Democratic Party’s current rules, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace Biden as the party’s nominee without his cooperation or without party officials willing to rewrite the rules at the August national convention.
The president won an overwhelming majority of Democratic delegates in the statewide primary process. And party rules state that “Delegates elected to the national convention and committed to a presidential candidate must in good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them.”
But the DNC’s rules do not have the same strict rules for “disloyal delegates” as the RNC’s, which ignore votes against those that conflict with a delegate’s promised position.
Meanwhile, Republicans were thrilled with Biden’s lackluster performance. But Trump’s co-campaign manager dismissed talk of Democrats nominating anyone other than Biden.
“There are so many political experts on “But the only way that will happen is if Joe Biden voluntarily resigns, and he’s not going to do that.”
Thursday’s debate may be etched in voters’ minds for the foreseeable future, as Biden and Trump won’t meet again on the debate stage for the next 75 days.
LaCavita said Trump would attend the next debate “with the bells on.” Biden’s campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz confirmed that Biden would also attend the rematch.
But privately, Biden advisers suggested the campaign would never be won or lost in one meeting, conversation or debate. They pointed to plans to maintain an aggressive schedule in the coming weeks and months.
On Friday, Biden was scheduled to campaign in North Carolina while Harris was in Nevada.
Still, Biden supporters struggled to find any hope in the immediate aftermath of the debate.
“That was the worst performance in the history of televised presidential debates,” Tim Miller, a former Republican strategist who is now an ardent Biden supporter, said in the spin room, shaking his head in disbelief.
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Miller reported from Washington. AP writers Bill Barrow and Darlene Superville in Atlanta; Jill Colvin in New York and Lisa Mascaro in Washington contributed.
