WASHINGTON — President Joe BidenDonald Trump’s political world is collapsing. His top allies have publicly and privately called on him to step down. Major donations have plummeted. Grassroots fundraising is not keeping up with the demands of a campaign that must aggressively ramp up three months before the presidential election. Members of his own reelection effort have already declared he has no path to victory.
Since a disastrous debate In Atlanta, the trajectory of his campaign was upended three weeks ago, as Biden repeatedly tried to establish himself, thwarting efforts to dislodge him from power.
But there is now a palpable sense that the ground has shifted beneath his feet, according to five people familiar with the situation, even among some of the president’s most provocative internal supporters who now believe the writing is on the wall.
“We are close to the end,” said a person close to Biden.
The person, who previously doubted Biden would ever step down, acknowledged that the decision still rests with the president but joined the group of Biden allies who say he is approaching a point of no return.
As the extraordinary events unfolded, the president tested positive for Covid on Wednesday and retreated to his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, taking him away from the campaign trail. Once again, it offered a stark contrast to the former president President Donald Trumpwho, even after his to narrowly escape death Saturday, will appear at a noisy coronation at Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Thursday night.
Also Wednesday, Rep. Adam Schiff, who is running for Senate in California, launched a remarkable public appeal for the president to drop the nomination, a move that eventually revealed that other Democratic leaders — including Reps. Hakeem Jeffries And Nancy Pelosiand Senator Chuck Schumer — had raised serious concernssupported by the polls, with the president indicating that he risked losing control of Congress if he continued on this path.
In the hours after the attempted assassination of Trump last weekend, some Democrats said — and even feared — that calls for Biden’s resignation would be “frozen” The president faced a national crisis. But that impression has quickly faded. Some allies now say the shooting, which has sparked an even greater rally around Trump within his party, only makes it clearer that the lingering narrative that Biden is in cognitive decline cannot win the White House.
A person familiar with the projections said the Biden campaign now expects to raise only 25% of the money from big donors it had originally planned to raise in July. This is a new degradation Last week, there were expectations for a 50% drop in major fundraising. The money has “dried up,” this person said.
One Democratic lawmaker said Wednesday that if Biden doesn’t agree to step down, the cacophony of calls will only grow louder, with more lawmakers urging him to do so. The lawmaker called it a “sad” moment for the party.
A sense of reality is beginning to creep in among some of the president’s top campaign lieutenants, who have endured floods of phone calls from donors and former supporters signaling they can no longer support Biden.
A person who spoke with a senior campaign official said a sense of a new reality has taken hold of the campaign.
“They’re finally starting to understand: It’s a question of when, not if,” the person said.
According to several people close to Biden, there has been a shift behind the scenes in the president’s willingness to step down, despite his aggressive insistence in public appearances and private phone calls with allies that he is not going anywhere.
Biden had already, in the opinion of some aides, showed signs that if he was convinced there was no path forward, “he wouldn’t move forward,” said a person familiar with the president’s conversations with his advisers.
NBC News Previously reported that Biden’s private conversations with advisers had become more “reality-based” and included discussions about how his legacy could be defined by a prolonged standoff with his own party or by losing the White House to Donald Trump, whom Biden has repeatedly warned poses a danger to American democracy.
On the surface, campaign officials remain steadfast in their assertion that Biden is going nowhere.
“The president is feeling well. He is in isolation in Delaware,” Biden campaign deputy manager Quentin Fulks said at a news conference in Milwaukee. “Our campaign does not foresee any scenario in which President Biden is not at the top of the ticket. He is and will be the Democratic nominee.”
Since the June 27 televised debate, in which Biden appeared confused, sometimes unable to finish a sentence, his every move has been scrutinized. Biden has ramped up his usually very limited media exposure to demonstrate that he can make a compelling case for reelection.
“I’m old,” Biden said NBC News’ Lester Holt said in an interview Monday“But I’m only three years older than Trump, No. 1. And No. 2, my mental acuity is pretty good. I’ve accomplished more than any president in a long, long time, in three and a half years. So I’m willing to be judged on that.”
But instead of allaying fears, Biden’s revelation only intensified them among his allies. Biden stumbled, mixed up names and seemed to lose his train of thought.
Before leaving the trail Wednesday, for example, Biden mistakenly referred to Nevada’s Democratic attorney general as the state’s governor, who is a Republican, according to a pool report from the exchange.
“Sad,” is how one close Biden ally described the dynamics around the president.
“There is absolutely no enthusiasm in this campaign,” another ally said.
Some Biden aides have warned that the campaign has captured the anger of some voters in key states who feel people are trying to force the president they voted for off the ballot.
And even as calls for Biden to step aside grow louder, one campaign official said that as of last weekend, no one had presented a detailed plan for an alternative to Biden.
In an interview that aired Wednesday night, Biden said that in addition to being shown there was no path to victory, there was something else that would cause him to reevaluate his campaign.
“If I have a health problem that comes up,” Biden suggested. “If somebody, if the doctors came to me and said I have this problem, that problem.”
Carol E. Lee and Monica Alba reported from Washington; Natasha Korecki reported from Chicago.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
