U.S. President Joe Biden vowed to stay in the 2024 presidential race during calls with campaign staff and meetings with Democratic lawmakers and governors on Wednesday, as he sought to shake off calls for him to drop out after his shaky debate performance last week.
Biden dialed in to a call with worried members of his campaign team and told them he wasn’t going anywhere, according to two sources familiar with the call.
Concerns about Biden’s age and mental acuity exploded after Thursday’s debate with Trump, in which the president mumbled under his breath, lost his train of thought at times and, at one point, talked of beating Medicare. The president has said that he was tired after two foreign trips and the White House has said he had a cold.
Asked Wednesday if Biden was considering stepping down, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “Absolutely not.”
Soon after she spoke, two national polls suggested Biden’s chances against Trump – who rattled off a series of well-worn falsehoods during the debate – had deteriorated.
A Wall Street Journal survey found Trump beating Biden by a margin of 48% to 42%, up one percentage point, while a New York Times/Siena poll found Trump’s lead over Biden had widened by three points to 49% to 43%.
In a call among House Democrats on Wednesday, Arizona’s Raúl Grijalva called for Biden to drop out of the race while Representative Seth Moulton from Massachusetts pointed to Biden’s age as a liability.
“The unfortunate reality is that the status quo will likely deliver us President Trump,” Moulton said in a statement. “President Biden is not going to get younger.”
While the campaign has highlighted fundraising successes with grassroots donors and held damage control calls with donors, Reed Hastings, a major Democratic Party donor and a co-founder of streaming platform Netflix (NFLX.O), opens new tab, called for Biden to step aside.
Vice President Kamala Harris has meanwhile gained support as his potential replacement.
Dmitri Mehlhorn, an adviser to LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, told Reuters his team would “enthusiastically support a ticket led by our tough and savvy vice president if Biden were to step aside for any reason.”
Melhorn said Harris was the only serious national contender who had already been subjected to major attacks by Trump’s “Make America Great Again” supporters.
“We would lose Joe’s superpower brand, but we would gain other benefits and would still be competitive,” he said.
