NEW YORK (AP) — A sense of concern is growing within the upper ranks of the Democratic Party that the leaders of Joe BidenThe Democratic Party campaign and the Democratic National Committee are not taking the impact of the The President’s Disturbing Performance in the Debate earlier in the week.
President of the DNC Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez held a call Saturday afternoon with dozens of committee members across the country, a group made up of some of the party’s most influential members. They largely ignored Biden’s weak performance on Thursday night or the avalanche of criticism that followed.
Several committee members on the call, most granted anonymity to speak about the private discussion, said they felt like they were being manipulated, as if they were being asked to ignore the dire nature of the situation. party. The call, they said, may have compounded a widespread sense of panic among elected officials, donors and other stakeholders.
Instead, the people said, Harrison offered what they described as an optimistic assessment of Biden’s path forward. The chat function was disabled and no questions were allowed.
“I was hoping to have a more substantive conversation instead of, ‘Hey, let’s go out there and just be cheerleaders,’ without actually addressing a very serious issue that was played out on American television and seen by millions of people,” said Joe Salazar, a Colorado DNC member-elect who was on the call. “There were a number of things that could have been said to address the situation, but we didn’t get it.”
Many donors, party strategists and DNC members have said publicly and privately that they want Biden, 81, to step aside to allow the party to choose a younger replacement at the Democratic National Convention in August. For now, however, Biden’s closest allies insist he remains well-positioned to compete with Republican Donald Trump and gave no indication that they would push him to end his campaign.
Those best positioned to replace him — Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer among them — reiterated their support for Biden after the debate.
Many are eagerly awaiting the first major post-debate public poll to determine their next steps.
Polls by CNN and 538/Ipsos taken shortly after the debate found that most observers thought Trump had outperformed Biden. But both men’s approval ratings remained largely unchanged, as they had been during the previous debate. The consequences of Trump’s conviction in New York that he illegally participated in a hush money scheme to influence the 2016 election.
In a subsequent appearance on MSNBC, Harrison downplayed the conference call, which he said was part of a regularly scheduled call “to talk about the state of the race” and the upcoming national convention with the many elected members of the DNC across the country.
Biden and his campaign sought to project confidence in the days after Thursday’s debate in which the president, already facing serious concerns about his physical and mental stamina, delivered a performance punctuated by repeated stumbles, awkward pauses and a quiet speaking style that was often difficult to understand.
Just after Saturday’s DNC call, the Biden campaign released a memo from senior adviser Jen O’Malley Dillon insisting that the debate had no tangible impact on the election.
“On every metric that matters, the data shows that this has done nothing to change the perception of the American people, that our supporters are more enthusiastic than ever, and that Donald Trump has only reminded voters why they fired him ago four years and had failed to extend his appeal beyond his term in office. Base MAGA,” O’Malley Dillon wrote.
She added: “If we see changes in the polls in the coming weeks, it will not be the first time that exaggerated media narratives have led to temporary drops in the polls. »
Meanwhile, Biden spent much of Saturday courting wealthy donors in the famously wealthy enclave of the Hamptons in New York.
“I didn’t have a good night, but neither did Trump,” Biden said of the debate at a rally in East Hampton.
Of Trump, Biden said: “What stands out the most is his lies.”
Harrison reinforced the president’s message during the DNC conference call, which lasted about an hour. Hannah Muldavin, a DNC spokeswoman, said the discussion was part of a regular quarterly conference call with committee members.
Topics covered included Biden’s energetic appearance in North Carolina the day after the debate and a fundraising surge that generated more than $27 million for the campaign between the day of the debate and Friday evening, Muldavin said .
Harrison didn’t completely ignore the debate in his remarks, she said.
He briefly referred to Biden’s comments during his speech in North Carolina that he doesn’t debate as well as he used to, but knows how to get back up when he gets knocked down.
Salazar noted that Harrison also suggested that party leaders always knew the 2024 presidential race would be close, a regular Democratic talking point that irks Salazar.
“This shouldn’t be a close race,” Salazar said, pointing to Trump’s criminal record and long history of lies. “They should be the ones looking for a new candidate, not us. And unfortunately for us, thanks to our president’s performance on Thursday evening, it is now an open debate.
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Associated Press journalists Will Weissert in Washington and Josh Boak in East Hampton, New York, contributed to this report.
