President Biden is trying to reassure top Democrats that he’s up for the challenge of beating former President Trump in November and serving for another four years, amid increasing pressure for him to drop out of the race after his dismal debate performance.
The president and his team have been making the rounds. Biden spoke to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Tuesday night. He’s also scheduled to speak to Democratic governors Wednesday evening.
The White House also will have an all-staff call this afternoon headed by chief of staff Jeff Zients, a sign it is trying to calm staffers who have expressed unease about the situation.
Those close to Biden and his team acknowledge they’re aware of the outcry and the battle the president must wage to convince Democrats that he’s up for the task of a campaign against former President Trump.
“The President and his team understand what they're up against,” one key ally said. “They know there's no time to waste.”
But the ally acknowledged that the “things aren't looking good” for the president as the week carries on.
The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing a key ally, that Biden said he may not be able to salvage his candidacy if he can't sway the public in the coming days that he can handle the job.
“He knows if he has two more events like that, we're in a different place,” the key ally told the Times.
White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said the report was “absolutely false.”
Another Biden ally said that in today's all-staff call, Zients will emphasize that White House aides should stay focused on doing the work and the mission as they weather the storm. “He's basically going to tell them to keep their heads down,” one Democrat said.
A Biden campaign call will also take place around the same time for campaign aides.
At the same time, Biden and his team are also pushing back on expectations that Trump will widen his lead in polls amid the fallout from last week’s debate.
On Wednesday morning, a memo obtained by The Hill sought to ease some nerves on the Biden team.
“We are going to see a few polls come out today and we want you all to hear from us on what we know internally and what we expect to come externally,” campaign Chair Jen O'Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote in the memo. “As always there will be lots of chatter and analysis.”
But the campaign's top brass pointed to internal battleground polling from Tuesday night that pointed to a “steady race.”
“We estimate that we're down just 1 point in margin,” the memo says. “All this is well within the margin of error and shows a steady race.”
The campaign sought to set expectations on a New York Times/Siena College poll they acknowledged is “likely to show a slightly larger swing in the race.”
“We should all keep in mind that, just last week, the NYT themselves acknowledged that they are often a polling outlier,” the memo said.
“Polls are a snapshot in time and we should all expect them to continue to fluctuate,” the memo says. “It will take a few weeks, not a few days, to get a full picture of the race.”
Questions linger over whether Biden can convince Democrats to stick with him or if more voices will call for him to step aside.
Wednesday's call will be the first conversation with governors since the debate, which raised some red flags for his allies. Ahead of the meeting, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) said he’d “like to see more” of Biden reassuring others.
“When you come off a bad debate, you need to remind people why you’re the right guy to elect,” Pritzker told CNN on Tuesday.
