The support was published four days after the debate and at a time when polls indicate that Biden has lost ground after the debate.
Meanwhile, the White House has come out to deny reports that the president was meeting with his family to evaluate his candidacy, as reported by NBC News.
No major party figure has broken ranks to call for Biden to resign, and prominent Democrats, including former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, have expressed full support amid an outpouring of doubt from citizens and even a call from the New York Times editorial board for him to step aside.
And the president’s confrontation on Thursday night with former President Trump should have been an opportunity for Biden to dispel doubts about his advanced age and his fitness for office. But his speech was hesitant. On several occasions he got stuck and seemed to lose track of his ideas.
As a result, some Democrats are considering behind the scenes whether he should remain the party’s candidate, who has until August to decide. Biden was seen on screen staring, mouth open, as Trump spoke.
Not everyone speaks in public
The wave of party support follows the president’s shaky performance in the debate against the Republican nominee, in which Biden often hesitated, stumbled over his words and lost his train of thought, raising concerns about his age.
“This isn’t about performance in terms of a debate, this is about performance in a presidency,” Democratic Representative Nancy Pelosi, former speaker of the House of Representatives, told CNN’s “State of the Union” program on Sunday.
“On one side of the screen, you have integrity; on the other side you have dishonesty,” Pelosi said, echoing a number of party figures who iThey are trying to change the focus of what they understand as an “unfortunate” performance by Biden, a politician with half a century of experience, and not at his advanced age.
What do the surveys say?
According to a CBS News poll conducted in the two days after the debate, nearly three-quarters of registered voters now believe Biden should not run for president, including 46 percent of Democrats.
Biden and his family traveled to the presidential country residence of Camp David on Saturday evening, where NBC News reported he was expected to assess the future of his reelection campaign.
However, White House deputy deputy press secretary Andrew Bates posted on
The “only one” who can beat Trump
Meanwhile, Biden’s campaign reported that it has raised $33 million since the debate, including $26 million from grassroots donors.
Biden should “absolutely” drop out of the race, Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“Our job is to make sure he gets over the finish line in November. Not for his sake, but for the sake of the country.”
On Friday, Biden tried to quell the negative comments with a fiery campaign speech in North Carolina in which he vowed to keep fighting.
He appeared alongside his wife, first lady Jill Biden, who fiercely defended her husband amid calls for him to resign.
“On that campaign stage in North Carolina, I saw an energetic, committed and capable Joe Biden,” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Biden’s home state of Delaware said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
“I think he had a weak performance in the debate,” Coons admitted, but added that Trump nonetheless had a “horrible performance where, yes, he spoke clearly, but what he said was lie after lie after lie,” according to the Democrat.
Biden, he added, is “the only Democrat who can beat Donald Trump.”
Donors hesitate
High-profile Hollywood donors, according to Fox News, have said they will not give more money to the Democratic Party if President Biden does not end his re-election bid, Variety reported.
Friday’s article cited several Hollywood insiders who noted that following Biden’s debate performance Thursday night, top liberal donors have become disillusioned with the former president and want someone else at the top of the ticket.
“It’s really hard to see how we can continue to support him. He needs to dig deeper into whether he can, in good conscience, be our nominee,” Hannah Linkenhoker, an adviser to several of these donors, told the outlet, Fox News reported.
Democratic donors from New York, Southern California and Silicon Valley privately expressed deep concern about the viability of Biden’s campaign following his debate performance.
Biden campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon said in a public memo Saturday that internal polling after the debate showed “voter opinions did not change.” She even claimed there had been an increase in support, with $27 million raised by Friday night.
But some donors said they were suspending personal donations. They said Biden’s weekend fundraising revenue was likely to be high because tickets were sold and paid for before the debate.
Source: EDITORIAL AND AFP
