The Supreme Court’s decision on Monday Donald Trump Immunity for past and potentially future presidential actions gave Democrats more urgency to defeat him, just as new polls showed that last week’s debate reinforced voters’ concerns that President Biden may not be the right man to do so.
The conflicting news stories underscored a conundrum the party has been grappling with for months: Evidence that Trump will wield unchecked power in a potential second term energizes the Democratic base. But the growing significance of the election makes the choice to stick with Biden all the more risky.
“You can’t afford to lose,” said Mark Buell, a prominent Democratic donor and fundraiser from the Bay Area. “In either case, you still have to make the risk assessment of who has a better chance — another candidate or Biden?”
Mark Gonzalez, the recently departed chairman of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party and California state director for Biden’s 2020 campaign, said he spent the weekend trying to calm the nerves of his fellow Democrats. Monday’s statement only reinforced the stakes for those worried about Biden’s fitness for the job and his poor political standing, he said. A CBS poll released Sunday found that a growing share of voters — 72% — say Biden doesn’t have the cognitive ability to serve as president, compared with 49% who say the same about Trump.
Read more: Supreme Court Gives Trump Broad Immunity from Prosecution — for the Past, and Perhaps the Future
“The reality is, whether they’re a representative, an activist, a $5 donor, they’re scared,” Gonzalez said of the people he spoke to this weekend. “They’re scared that we need a stronger person to represent the Democratic Party so we can prevail in November.”
Gonzalez said Monday “is a good reminder that we have to be able to … be prepared, and know that the other side is going to do everything they can to take us down. We cannot afford to lose democracy because of mistakes in this one debate.”
The Biden campaign scheduled a media call within minutes of Monday’s ruling in hopes of shifting attention from Biden’s poor Thursday debate to Trump, whom they characterized as a unique threat to democracy. Ruling that he cannot be prosecuted for official acts would only embolden him to carry out threats to prosecute enemies and act like a dictator on his first day in office if he wins a second term, officials argued.
“This is not a drill,” said Harry Dunn, a police officer who defended the Capitol on Jan. 6 and has become a Democratic deputy. “Donald Trump is the greatest threat to the United States of America in a generation. We cannot let him anywhere near the Oval Office.”
Quentin Fulks, deputy campaign manager for Biden-Harris 2024, pointed to a new ad the campaign released Monday and to increased efforts to organize volunteers in swing states.
But many Democrats have urged the president to appear at more rallies and give more hostile media interviews to demonstrate his vitality. Fulks, asked during the call whether Biden had plans to expand his public engagement schedule to include town halls and other unscripted meetings, said he had no changes to announce.
A USA Today poll conducted Friday through Sunday found that 54% of registered voters want Biden replaced as the nominee, compared to 37% who want him on the ballot. For Trump, the split was 51% to 46% in favor of removing him from the ballot, despite Trump’s record as a convicted felon who remains unwilling to concede he lost the 2020 election.
Trump, 78, had more support within his own party than Biden, 81, did within his party. The best news for Biden is that demand was nearly equal among independent voters, with 64% saying they wanted Biden replaced and 63% wanting Trump replaced.
Despite growing concerns among allies, Biden has shown no signs he’s willing to step aside, and party rules would make it nearly impossible to remove him from the ballot without his approval. A source familiar with a weekend Biden family gathering at Camp David confirmed that the president’s family is determined he stays in the race, calling it “a united front.”
Buell, who has been vocal in the coming days about the need to evaluate polls in swing states, thinks there’s still a chance Biden could agree to withdraw if the data suggests it’s the best way to beat Trump.
“The people around Biden, they may see it that way privately, but of course publicly they’re all singing the song that he’s doing fine,” Buell said. “And I think they should do that until he says he wants to pull the plug.”
Read more: Trump ally Stephen Bannon surrenders to federal prison to serve 4-month sentence
Still, some party stalwarts are undeterred. Susan Reina, an activist in the Antelope Valley who oversees voter registration in a competitive congressional district, said it was essential to remind voters that the choice comes down to a binary one. Divisions within the Democratic Party play into the hands of Republicans who have rallied around Trump, she said.
The court’s ruling Monday gave Trump another political advantage. It all but guaranteed a delay after November of Trump’s trial on charges that he and his political allies undermined the 2020 election.
For Reina and others, this means it is even more important to defeat the former president in the elections, “so that we can have the same freedoms in this country as we have today.”
Bierman reported from Washington, Oreskes from Los Angeles.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.
