Democrats line up to defend Biden as poll shows rising unease over fitness

Prominent Democrats lined up to defend Joe Biden on Sunday as a new poll showed nearly three-quarters of US voters thought he should end his re-election campaign following his disastrous debate performance.

A campaign damage control effort kicked into overdrive at the weekend amid calls from many Democrats for the 81-year-old president to stand aside in favour of a younger candidate because of concerns about his age and fitness for office.

These calls were added weight by a CBS News-YouGov poll released on Sunday that showed 72 per cent of registered voters thought Biden should not be running for president, up from 63 per cent in February.

Nearly three-quarters polled after the debate did not think Biden had the cognitive health to serve as president, up from 65 per cent three weeks earlier. Just under half of respondents said the same about Republican rival Donald Trump.

Many Democratic lawmakers, donors and party operatives have questioned whether Biden should remain their nominee following a halting debate performance on Thursday in which he rambled, stumbled over his words and lost his train of thought.

Biden spent Friday night and Saturday trying to reassure wealthy backers, with a whistle-stop tour of fundraisers in Manhattan, the Hamptons and New Jersey. But many donors remained panicked about the president’s ability to defeat Trump, let alone serve another four years in the White House.

“I’m not sure we needed more evidence to make up our minds but this poll is a further reminder that unless we act now Trump is a guaranteed winner in November,” said one donor on Sunday.

Meanwhile, at a large party in Hollywood on Friday night whose guests included Disney chief executive Bob Iger and California governor Gavin Newsom, attendees expressed anger at Jeffrey Katzenberg, the media mogul who is a co-chair of Biden’s re-election campaign and among his chief fundraisers, according to one person who attended.

The industry veteran said Katzenberg had assured donors that Biden was “fine”, as he sought contributions for the campaign. Journalists covering the president’s fundraisers on Saturday reported that Katzenberg travelled with him on Air Force One.

A representative for Katzenberg did not respond to a request for comment.

The industry stalwart predicted people in Hollywood would close their cheque books to Biden.

“They can’t justify giving more money because the right thing to do for the country is for the guy to step down,” the person said. “The reality is that everyone wants [Biden] to step down now. You can’t have the most powerful man in the world in the White House with a deteriorating mental condition.”

But one person who attended Biden’s East Hampton fundraiser on Saturday said that, while the atmosphere was sombre, donors there remained committed to supporting Biden as he was the only one capable of beating Trump. 

“It’s too late to change horse. We need to get real and support our president against a despot,” the person said. “There are still a ton of people who back Biden, the party needs to rally around him.”

Many donors and Democratic party operatives, including those who want to push Biden out, fear an open contest to replace him could cause even more damage to the party’s election prospects.

“One of the things that Biden has done successfully is suppress the divisions in the Democratic party . . . With a new battle for leadership there is a risk that all of those divisions would rise to the surface,” said a person close to several megadonors.

The Biden team on Sunday insisted the president had no intention of stepping out of the race. An official said the campaign had raked in $33mn since Thursday’s debate, including $26mn from grassroots, or small-dollar, donors.

Campaign officials were also quick to dismiss damaging polling for the president. In a widely circulated memo on Saturday night, Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said: “If we do see changes in polling in the coming weeks, it will not be the first time that overblown media narratives have driven temporary dips in the polls.”

High-profile Biden supporters on Sunday rallied around him, framing Thursday’s disastrous debate performance as just one bad night for the president.

When asked about those in the party expressing concerns about Biden’s candidacy, Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries told MSNBC: “We’re in the process of having conversations with various parts of the House Democratic Caucus that’s ongoing. That will continue.”

“It was a bad night. Let’s not sugar-coat that,” former US Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi said on CNN’s State of the Union.

But she added: “It’s not about performance in terms of a debate, it’s about performance in a presidency.” 

Biden was at Camp David on Sunday for what aides described as long-planned time with his family, widely seen as the only people who could convince the president to step aside. 

The New York Times reported that Biden’s family members had urged him at the gathering to stay in the race, citing sources.

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