Less than 48 hours after President Joe Biden’s alarming debate performance, the Democratic donor class is in crisis, racked by anxiety over what the party’s wealthiest supporters can do to reinvigorate or replace Biden, whose campaign has commissioned new polls to assess the damage.
The vast universe of wealthy Biden supporters and political whisperers fell into three lines. One faction argues that a pressure campaign urging the president — who has been adamant not to step aside — to stand down would be a self-defeating failure. Another calls for a middle-of-the-road approach, saying party leaders should consider drastic measures only after the fallout from Thursday night has been more closely examined.
Democratic strategist and fundraiser Dmitri Mehlhorn, who often works closely with LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, another prominent donor, told CNN that while the first 10 or 15 minutes of the debate “were very disturbing to watch,” Biden’s performance later in Atlanta and then, at a high-energy rally Friday in North Carolina, he began to calm your nerves.
In any case, he argued, only Biden controlled his destiny as the Democratic nominee.
“The smartest thing is to think about how you (as influential external actors) operate, assuming there are no changes,” Mehlhorn said. “And if there is no change, if Biden wants to remain president, then any kind of pressure campaign will just be a waste of time, energy, effort and money.”
A third group of donors and advisers, with fewer direct ties to the Biden world and less influence within it, is proactively calling on Democrats to stop wasting time and immediately begin the process of searching for a new candidate with just over four months to go. before his general election showdown with former President Donald Trump.
The possible favorites to replace Biden, should he reverse course and drop out of the race, were careful to pledge their support for the president and, as California Governor Gavin Newsom did, come out ahead to defend him.
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“All this other talk… is pointless and unnecessary. We will not turn our backs because of a performance,” Newsom said in an email to supporters on Friday (28). “What kind of party does this?”
As Biden’s campaign conducts extensive polling in battleground states about the president’s standing, other Democratic leaders have been less inclined to point out the problems –– warning instead that the party is doomed to defeat if it doesn’t act on it. decisive to change the equation.
Former Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, who served alongside Biden in the Senate for decades, sought to set the tone in a trenchant letter he sent to friends after the debate.
“All sitting Democratic senators should write to Biden asking him to release his delegates and step aside so the convention can choose a new candidate,” Harkin wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by CNN. “Some governors may need to do the same.”
Harkin said there is still time for a course correction and a new Democratic ticket, which he believes “would energize the party at all levels and capture the attention of the general public — many of whom would like to have an alternative to Trump.”
“This is a dangerous moment, and it is more important than Joe Biden’s ego,” Harkin wrote, “or his desire to remain president.”
There appears to be agreement among all sides on one thing: Ultimately, the decision will be up to Biden. There is no appetite for a showdown at the Democratic National Convention this summer in Chicago — in part because there is no clear apparatus to sideline Biden, but mostly due to concerns that an explicit battle, no matter the outcome, would do more harm than good.
“The party is in President Biden’s hands – for better or worse,” a Democratic senator told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid disrespecting the president or alienating the campaign. “He deserves our respect and space to make any decision.”
The absence of an heir apparent for Biden who could satisfy the party’s constantly warring factions while also being able to quickly bring together networks of competing donors is another significant obstacle for those pushing for immediate action.
“There is no real succession plan,” a senior Democratic adviser to the Biden campaign told CNN on Saturday (29). “That’s what makes all of this not only painful but also very problematic.”
Democrats are conducting new polls and surveys over the weekend and into early next week in an effort to get a better understanding of the political fallout, especially in the key races that will determine whether the party can regain its House majority and maintain its narrow position of control of the Senate.
A second longtime adviser said the only way Biden would consider stepping aside — a move that remains an open question — would be if he were presented with serious data showing he would likely not only lose his re-election bid but also put in jeopardy. risk voting for candidates in the House, Senate and in competitive local races across the country.
The Biden campaign has long had polls that reveal Democrats would still support these candidates even if they didn’t vote for Biden. If the president’s debate setback made some of these voters much less inclined to vote — giving Trump and Republicans a turnout advantage — Biden could be faced with a tougher decision.
Without that information for now, the most prominent national Democrats, led by former President Barack Obama, are asking the party’s donors to keep the faith.
For years, the relationship between Obama and Biden and their circle of advisers was strained by Obama’s decision to support Hillary Clinton’s 2015 presidential bid and to urge Biden not to run. This moment “is even more tense,” a longtime Obama adviser said Saturday, noting that Biden would ultimately have to make “any decisions about his next steps on his own.”
At a fundraiser for House Democrats in New York on Friday night, Obama did not answer questions from donors in the audience while speaking with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Florida Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was in attendance, told CNN that the meeting was a “fireside chat”.
The former president, as he did in a social media post earlier in the day, told attendees about his own dark 2012 debate experience, repeated a message about the stark contrast between the two presidential candidates, and said that Biden’s values “ reflect the best of America.”
When asked about the debate by Jeffries, Obama opted for a broader view of the situation.
“An appropriate message for tonight is that this is a team sport. The president is the captain and we need the White House because of the enormous power of the executive branch,” Obama said. “But the critical need to take back the House and have Hakeem Jeffries as Speaker should be motivation enough. And if we do our job on that front, that’s probably the most important thing we can do for Biden’s re-election campaign as well.”
But signs – literally – of dissent have been more prominent outside the fundraising circuit. When Biden arrived at hedge fund manager Barry Goldstein’s event in East Hampton, New York, on Saturday, his motorcade passed a group of people holding signs calling on the president to step down.
“We love you,” one said, “but it’s time.”
Once inside, Biden acknowledged the distress among donors.
“I understand the concern about the debate – I understand,” said the president. “I didn’t have a great night.”
But he also dismissed some of the concerns expressed in recent reports.
“Voters had a different reaction,” Biden said, claiming that post-debate polls showed little movement other than a few numbers that “brought us up, actually.”
Goldstein told CNN that more than 200 people were expected at the event, which yielded additional donations on the Friday morning after the debate. Actors Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick were among the hosts, and former Trump communications director Anthony Scaramucci was also in attendance.
As he toured the Hamptons, Biden was accompanied by Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood mogul who served as his campaign co-chair. Biden’s team tried to point to some positives in fundraising in the days after the debate, saying the campaign raised more than $27 million over a two-day period.
These meetings follow mixed reviews that emerged from a Friday night event in New York City attended by Biden and headlined by rock ‘n’ roll legend Elton John.
“The vibe in the room was completely bizarre,” said a Democratic strategist who attended the event. “You’re having fun and the drinks are flowing, and Elton John was there – but you’re waiting for the gaffe, you’re waiting for the slip-up – magnified by the terror of the night before.”
Another donor present, Charles Myers, told CNN that the panic narrative surrounding the exodus of Biden campaign donors was “frustrating” and “not what’s happening.”
“Yes, donors were nervous after the dismal debate performance,” Myers said, “but they’re still on board and some want to do more.” The East Village gathering, he added, saw Biden in “great shape” and he had the “overall feeling” that even though the debate “was really bad… the campaign is making a course correction and we all want to double down on the effort.” to help with this turnaround.”
“It’s time to do research and find out if there is any potential replacement with a higher vote share than Trump,” he told CNN billionaire businessman Mark Cuban, who recently spoke out in support of Biden. Trump is politically weak, Cuban said, so “it would be worth considering a Democrat who could “step in and immediately change the race.”
For now, however, Cuban — who said he is not a donor to Biden’s campaign but participated in a fundraiser in March to show his support — made it clear that the task of replacing Biden in this late phase of the cycle would be exceptionally challenging.
The former majority owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, who previously supported former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley in the Republican Party primary, used a sports analogy: “At this point, it’s more like discussing an NBA or NFL game. after the fact and want to trade players,” Cuban said.
Hoffman offered a variation on this theme in a Friday night email to friends — some of whom, he wrote, asked “whether there should be a public campaign to pressure President Biden to step aside after his poor debate performance.” .
“I think such a campaign to get Biden to resign would be a bad idea,” Hoffman wrote, arguing that such moves could strengthen Biden’s resolve to prove his skeptics wrong.
He also highlighted the president’s spirited performance at the rally in Virginia and the way Republicans reacted after Trump’s felony conviction last month.
“They closed ranks relentlessly and immediately,” Hoffman wrote, “because they understand that at this stage of the race they must spend every minute and penny, whether to boost their old man, or to destroy ours.”
Another Democratic donor was more blunt about the situation and the party’s choices.
“I don’t think (Biden) is going anywhere,” the donor said to CNN. “This is the old horse we have and we need to ride him until he is ready for the glue factory.”
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