President Biden’s disastrous debate performance has left Democrats scrambling for ways to strengthen their weakened president.
Democratic lawmakers and strategists for months predicted the presidential race would be extremely close, but now see Biden as an underdog after he stumbled into former President Trump on the debate stage.
The debate over whether Biden should be the nominee is not over, and new polls in swing states next week could give new ammunition to those who argue the party would be better off pressuring Biden to step aside in favor of another candidate.
But Biden’s campaign, the White House and some of his key allies insist he is not going anywhere. They are more focused on strengthening Biden as a candidate.
Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), Biden’s campaign co-chair, on Monday called for the president to have more off-the-cuff moments, a risky strategy given Biden’s reputation for making gaffes and avoiding the topic.
Some Democratic lawmakers and strategists think Biden and his party’s best move is to turn on the attack, stepping up attacks on Trump and the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which on Monday granted the former president substantial immunity against Law Suit.
“There are days when Biden is the smartest person in the room, and I’m sure there are days when his age is holding him back, but Biden needs and the campaign needs to show more days when he is at the top of his game. game, where he is gregarious, where he interacts, where he is fast. That’s how things turn,” said a Senate Democratic strategist.
“They have to show the American people that what happened last Thursday was an anomaly,” the source added.
The strategist said that Biden is now a clear underdog and that his campaign needs to adapt to the new political reality.
“It’s no longer about ‘Biden could do this or couldn’t.’ I think probably the prevailing feeling is that Biden is not up to the challenge. Whether that’s right or wrong, I think that’s now the prevailing sentiment,” the strategist said. “Biden is definitely the underdog right now, but I don’t think it’s a foregone conclusion that Trump will win this race.”
A post-debate poll in New Hampshire, a state that Democrats have been counting in Biden’s column, showed that Trump now leads Biden by 2 points.
The survey of 1,746 registered voters conducted by the Saint Anselm College Survey Center during Saturday and Sunday showed Biden has just a 39 percent favorable rating in the state, worse than Trump, who posted a 42 percent favorable rating.
Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist and former Senate leadership adviser, said Biden’s campaign needs to adjust its strategy.
“Any Democrat who doesn’t consider themselves an underdog right now needs to have their head examined. There is a real problem here. I hope the Biden people understand this and are trying to figure out what to do,” he said.
Manley said any change in strategy would be helped by quality polling data, but in the meantime Biden’s team needs to increase the candidate’s public exposure.
“They need to get him out of there as quickly as possible in some adversarial environments and let the chips fall where they may,” he said. “We hope he rises to the occasion, as he did in the State of the Union.”
Biden’s team limited the president’s exposure to media interviews during his first term, but Democratic strategists say they need to reconsider their instinct to protect the candidate.
“Part of being the underdog, you have to be willing to take a few more risks, be a little more aggressive,” Manley said. “A lot of his policies are popular, it’s just that he doesn’t sell them, so they need to be a little more aggressive.”
Coons, one of Biden’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, called on Monday for the president’s team to give him more freedom to show he still has the energy and ability to serve a second term.
“We need to see more unscripted, unrecorded moments. That’s something I’m encouraging,” he said Monday during an interview with “CNN This Morning.”
Coons told reporters before the debate that videos purporting to show Biden freezing or appearing lost at times were selectively edited to portray the president in a negative light. But after Thursday’s debate, it is now more difficult for Biden’s allies to put these videos aside without the president himself reassuring voters with more public appearances.
Former Pennsylvania Rep. Ron Klink (D) said Biden does better when interacting with crowds and criticized his campaign for agreeing to debate Trump without an audience present.
“Whoever the campaign managers were who agreed to only have the moderators, the staff and the two candidates in the room, that was a mistake. President Biden does very well when he has people to interact with. Even with an opposing crowd, you saw it at the State of the Union. He’s better when he interacts with people,” Klink said.
Biden drew praise after his State of the Union address in March, when he clashed with Republican lawmakers in a lively back-and-forth on the House dais.
Klink highlighted that former President Clinton managed to bounce back during some of the most difficult times in public life, drawing inspiration and energy from his voters and supporters.
The former Pennsylvania lawmaker also said Biden needs to do more to define his vision for a second term, a criticism voiced by Democratic senators.
“They need to reassure the public, particularly younger voters, by setting out their vision for the future. Have they done enough work on this? No, they didn’t,” Klink said.
Senate Democrats on Monday moved to attack the Supreme Court’s decision to grant Trump immunity for crimes related to his official acts as president and its decision on Friday to strike down Chevron’s so-called deference, which had previously made more easy for the federal government to implement environmental, consumer safety, and other regulations.
After remaining silent about Biden’s embarrassing debate performance, Senate Democrats unleashed a barrage of criticism aimed at the court and reminded voters that Trump appointed half of the court’s conservative majority.
While Biden is struggling with stubbornly low approval ratings, so is the Supreme Court. Just 36% of Americans approve of the high court, according to an average of polls compiled by FiveThirtyEight.com.
Some senior Democrats argue that there is no realistic path to replacing Biden as the candidate and that electing Trump as president after the Supreme Court ruled to grant him broad immunity from official actions would be a danger to democracy.
“Our current situation should give Democrats a rejuvenating opportunity to better focus on fixing what has gone wrong in America. We face three enormous threats: persistent insider attacks on our democracy, rampant climate upheaval, and a captured Court with some deeply corrupt justices,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) in a statement posted Monday on social media.
“We are in a war for our future and we should behave that way,” warned fellow Democrats.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
