Joe Biden is “absolutely not” withdrawing from the US presidential race, his spokesman said on Wednesday, as pressure mounts after his poor performance in a debate against Donald Trump.
Nervousness has gripped the Democratic Party following last week’s TV debate, and internal discussions about finding a replacement candidate ahead of the November election have been fueled by polls showing Trump in the lead.
The New York Times and CNN reported that Biden, 81, told a key aide that his re-election could be in jeopardy if he failed to quickly reassure the public that he was still capable of serving the office.
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre flatly denied the reports and insisted Biden had no intention of withdrawing.
“The President’s vision is clear and he remains in the race,” he told reporters.
Biden has said in conversations with campaign and party staff that he isn’t going anywhere.
According to a source close to the campaign, he said, “I am in this race until the end and we will win because when Democrats are united, we always win. Just like we defeated Donald Trump in 2020, we will defeat him in 2024.”
He later reiterated the same message in an emergency meeting with Democratic governors, who pledged their continued support, attendees said.
“When the president kept telling us and showing us he was absolutely ready … we said we would stand with him,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, who is seen as a rising star and potential future presidential candidate, told reporters alongside Sens. Tim Walz of Minnesota and Kathy Hochul of New York.
Walz said Biden is “fit to serve.”
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who attended the meeting at the White House and is considered one of the top candidates to replace Biden if he steps down, said on the social media platform X that “he is in the race to win and I support him.”
Biden has acknowledged he performed poorly in the debate, and said so bluntly in a recorded radio interview with Wisconsin’s Civic Media on Wednesday.
“I made a mistake. I spent 90 minutes on stage. Look what I have done in 3.5 years,” he said.
He reiterated that sentiment in an interview with Pennsylvania’s WURD radio on Thursday, saying, “I had a terrible debate.”
Result
The Biden campaign has been desperate to reassure Democratic donors and voters that the president’s performance against Trump was one-sided.
But party leaders have expressed surprise at what they see as a distraction and excuse from the president and his allies.
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, one of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors, told the New York Times that Biden should withdraw his name.
“Biden must step aside so a strong Democratic leader can defeat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous,” he said in an email to the newspaper.
Concerns were further fueled by a New York Times poll conducted after the debate, which showed Trump holding his largest lead ever over Biden — 49 percent versus 43 percent among likely voters.
As of Wednesday — six days after the debate — Biden had not completed a round of calls with Democratic congressional leaders, and staff have also expressed concern over the slow pace of outreach.
“We’re getting to the point where it wasn’t the debate that killed him, but the way he handled it that followed,” one senior Washington Democratic operative told political outlet Axios.
Biden’s ability to think on the fly will be tested when he gives his first post-debate television interview with ABC News on Friday, and he will also visit key states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania in the coming days.
‘More worrying’
The President has cited fatigue as a new explanation for his poor debate performance, saying it was not wise for him to “travel around the world two or three times” prior to the debate.
But he had been back in the U.S. for about two weeks and spent two days resting and six days preparing before the debate.
Democratic lawmakers have begun to express their doubts publicly. Arizona Congressman Raul Grijalva is another Democrat to call on Biden to withdraw from the election.
“If he’s the nominee, I would support him, but I think this is an opportunity to look elsewhere,” Grijalva said, according to the Times.
The street where the president grew up in Scranton, Pennsylvania, had signs sympathetic to Biden — but no campaign signs for either candidate.
“I was embarrassed for him. I thought he wasn’t well and maybe he shouldn’t have gone on stage,” Jamie Hayes, 73, said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)