Biden Faces Moment of Truth as Democratic Defections Grow
President Joe Biden is about to face another massive test as he tries to save a re-election campaign that has been overrun by questions about his mental and physical fitness to serve four more years and his ability to defeat Donald Trump a second time. As pressure continues to mount on a defiant Biden to step aside, he will take questions at a rare solo news conference, stepping in front of a media throng hungry for answers about his path forward and eager to see if he stumbles at all. A weak performance would invite a flood of Democratic calls for him to withdraw.
Biden’s press conference comes as a new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll finds both reason for the Biden camp to hold out hope and evidence that the president’s support is rapidly eroding.
The poll surveyed 2,431 adults from July 5 to 9, more than a week after Biden’s debate performance. It found that the race remains tied, with each candidate getting the support of 46% of registered voters, about the same as in April polling. Biden’s approval rating, at 36%, is essentially unchanged from 35% in late April and similar numbers last year. The favorability ratings for both Biden and Trump also held steady, at 42% and 34% respectively. “Biden continues to be viewed more positively on a personal level than Trump, while Trump's job approval rating remains slightly better than Biden's,” Ipsos, which conducted the poll, notes. Meanwhile, 58% of Americans say both men are too old for a second term.
Indications of a static race may quell some fears of a post-debate collapse in support for Biden, but the president so far has failed to swing the dynamic of the race in his favor — and the poll also found that fully 67% of Americans said that Biden should step aside given his debate performance (and half of Americans say the same about Trump). Seven in 10 independents and 56% of Democrats say Biden should drop his re-election bid. Views of the president’s mental sharpness and physical health have fallen since April.
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Those numbers may only add to the steady drip-drip-drip of Democrats calling on Biden to quit his campaign. In a Washington Post op-ed published Wednesday evening, Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont became the first Senate Democrat to openly urge Biden to withdraw. Reps. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, Ed Case of Hawaii, Hillary Scholten of Michigan and Greg Stanton of Arizona have joined the list of House Democrats bailing on Biden, bringing the total to at least 13 and counting. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, who represents a district that twice voted for Donald Trump, went so far as to suggest in an interview with KGW News that Biden should resign. “The crisis of confidence in the President’s leadership needs to come to an end,” she said.
Amid rumors and reports that many more party members are poised to speak up once the president is done hosting foreign leaders for this week’s NATO summit and holds his news conference, Axios reported Wednesday evening that even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer “is privately signaling to donors that he's open to a Democratic presidential ticket that isn't led by President Biden.”
Vice President Kamala Harris outperformed Biden in the ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll, edging Trump 49-46 among all adults and 49-47 among registered voters — though her lead isn’t statistically significant.
The Biden campaign is reportedly doing its own polling on how Harris would fare against Trump. That survey, The New York Times reports, “could be read as the team gathering information to present a case to the president that his path forward is slim, or to argue that Mr. Biden is still the strongest standard-bearer for his party.”
In a campaign memo laying out the path ahead, Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Rodriguez Chavez reportedly pushed back on the idea that any other Democrat would fare better than Biden. “In addition to what we believe is a clear pathway ahead for us, there is also no indication that anyone else would outperform the president vs. Trump,” they wrote, arguing that polling on other potential nominees doesn’t factor in the attacks and fresh scrutiny those candidates would inevitably face. “The only Democratic candidate for whom this is already baked in is President Biden,” they said.
The bottom line: Biden and his team have fumbled their efforts to stabilize the campaign and they may not have a path to salvage his candidacy and resolve Democratic concerns and divisions heading toward November. Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres warned in an X post Thursday: “Neither the press conference tonight nor the NBC interview on Monday evening will offer the President the political salvation he seems to be seeking.”