According to multiple close associates of President Joe Biden, including three individuals actively working to re-elect him, they now believe his prospects of winning are nil, and the possibility of him unseating other Democratic candidates is increasing.
“He needs to drop out,” remarked one Biden campaigner. “This is too much for him to handle. “
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Two weeks have passed since the disastrous debate in late June, and Biden still hasn’t managed to steady his campaign. Even though he plans to hold a presidential press conference on Thursday and top advisers will meet secretly with senators from the Democratic party, his continuous clean-up effort has failed to assuage the concerns of lawmakers and party leaders.
On the contrary, things are turning around.
Members of his inner circle, including executives charged with overseeing his campaign’s success, have joined the chorus of Democrats who believe he should reevaluate his choice to remain in the race. Even among his own supporters and the Democratic organizations that are lending their support to the campaign, many believe he should step down and give the nomination to someone else, according to those who talked with NBC News. They speculate that this someone may be Vice President Kamala Harris.
“No one involved in the effort thinks he has a path,” claimed a second individual who is also trying to elect him.
The Bidens paid a visit to a waffle eatery in Georgia after Joe and Jill’s debate with Trump on Thursday night.
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The current state of affairs, according to a third source close to Biden’s re-election campaign, is untenable due to the increasing number of surveys showing Biden’s support dwindling and other candidates performing better, the lack of money, and the issues surrounding Biden’s cognitive ability. This individual also expressed doubt about the campaign’s chances of success.
No one wants to be associated with hurting a candidate they support after his 2020 triumph over Trump and his policy victories as president, so they all agreed to speak anonymously. Two other Biden associates, meanwhile, told NBC News that they still hold out hope for a turnaround, but that it’s looking more and more improbable. Plus, they think supporting Biden is less important than defeating Trump in November.
“As for me and many others, the question is: Who can defeat Donald Trump?” according to someone else involved with the Biden campaign. “A large portion of our true blue contingent is now challenging our original views on that.”
The president has been very clear this week that he is not leaving, so the choice ultimately comes down to Biden’s decision to remain in office. Whatever happens, these people claim that Biden is out of the race, whether he withdraws before November or Trump wins the election.
In a statement issued to staff on Thursday, campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez outlined their reasons for believing in the president’s ability to win, just hours after NBC News questioned Biden aides about that decision.
In crucial battleground states, “this remains a margin-of-error race,” they stated, citing both internal data and public polling. “While the movement we have witnessed is undeniable, it does not constitute a dramatic shift in the race’s trajectory. A portion of it stemmed from undecided voters shifting their support to Trump, but a significant portion was propelled by traditionally Democratic constituencies becoming undecided.”
The Rust Belt states of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, as well as Arizona and Georgia, which Biden won in 2020 but is now trailing in the polls, are still considered winnable, according to O’Malley Dillon and Chavez Rodriguez.
“The debate was a setback,” they wrote, and no one was denying it. This campaign and Joe Biden have overcome obstacles before. Everything we need to succeed is crystal plain to us. And we will prevail if we press on as a party, united, and relentless in our pursuit of defeating Donald Trump until election day.
The president’s odds of winning have hardly changed post-debate, remaining at 48 out of 100, according to a 538 prediction of the fall election, which Biden’s supporters have cited. With 538 votes, Biden was 2.1% behind Trump.
But Democrats this week have watched shifts in other surveys that have set off alarms, including an AARP poll showing Biden trailing in Wisconsin, which had been his best battleground state.
“That’s the bright shining data point,” a longtime Democratic presidential campaign strategist said. “We have this window and the White House is just running out the clock, which is so selfish. We’re all waiting around for Joe Biden to f— up again, which is not a great position to be in.”
NBC News reported Wednesday that fundraising for the campaign is drying up as major Democratic donors and grassroots contributors are closing their wallets. At the same time, Trump, who is due to accept the Republican nomination next week, has been raking in cash.
The concern for many Democrats is that Biden will not only lose but perform so poorly that he acts as an anchor on down-ballot candidates.
“I worry that the symbol of our party is the person who’s running for president and that that does absolutely trickle down to the down ballot races,” said one state party chair who wants Biden to abandon his campaign.
The Biden campaign has started to quietly assess the viability of Harris’ candidacy against Trump in a new head-to-head poll, a source familiar with the decision told NBC News.
This person said it’s being done in the context of the Republican presumptive nominee “stepping up” his attacks against her, like he did at a recent Florida rally. The survey will take place this week and was commissioned by the Biden campaign’s analytics team, as The New York Times first reported.
Separately, a Democratic operative pointed out that testing Harris’ standing against Trump would be instructive in showing Biden whether she may fare better, worse than — or the same as — he does in current polling and that may be one reason to do it now.
But as more Democrats come to the conclusion that Biden can’t win — and shouldn’t try — his innermost circle has tightened to the point that it includes only family members and a couple of longtime advisers, according to two people familiar with deliberations about the future of the campaign.
The combination of Biden floundering publicly and relying on an increasingly insular set of advisers privately has damaged Democratic insiders’ confidence in his ability to make the best decisions for himself, the party and the country.
One Democratic lawmaker close to Biden said that while he will “never publicly disavow” the president, he believes that bowing out would be “the right thing for himself and the country.”
This lawmaker argued that Biden still has a chance of beating Trump. Yet he said Biden’s legacy would be “completely ruined” if he ends up losing and dragging down Democratic candidates. Public calls for Biden to exit the race, this lawmaker said, are “counterproductive” because they make the president more likely to fight back.