Biden acknowledged he had “not had a very good night” when he met donors Saturday at a fundraising event in East Hampton, New York, where the cost of access ranged from $3,300 to $250,000 per person, according to invitations. . ,
“I understand the concern about the debate. I understand,” Biden told supporters at an upscale hotel in the city.
However the president argued that “voters had varied reactions,” including: “Since the debate, the polls have shown a little bit of movement, actually moving us.”
Some polls were discounted after Thursday night’s debate, but the betting market moved dramatically for and against Biden during the showdown. In the Morning Search poll conducted on Friday, a section of Democratic voters said Biden should be different from any other candidate.
Three donors attending the East Hampton fundraiser described the atmosphere inside the room as calm, despite the president appearing more forceful at the point of the debate Thursday night.
Biden attended another fundraiser on Saturday at the Crimson Reserve in Unused Jersey, hosted by the state’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy.
Senior Democratic lawmakers and party stalwarts have also reached out to donors in recent days. Chuck Schumer, the most senior Democrat on Capitol Hill, has attempted to reassure many supporters about Biden’s candidacy since the debate, two party fundraisers said.
There were growing calls for the president to step down ahead of the November election and allow another Democrat to become the party’s nominee for the white vacancy.
At 81, Biden has faced questions for months about his pace and position at the administration center. However, whatever concerns Democratic insiders privately had about the current president became clear on Thursday night, when nearly 50 million Americans watched Biden’s effort against Trump in a live, televised debate. . The President began to wander, losing track of his thoughts and struggling to complete sentences.
Biden has insisted he will remain in the race, and campaign officials say he will participate in the second presidential debate planned for September.
The marketing campaign has touted a record influx of grassroots or small-dollar donations since Thursday. A campaign official said Saturday morning that the campaign had raised more than $27 million between the debate and Friday night.
“This was not their biggest debate. But it’s 90 minutes. , , “In a campaign and in an administration where he has made tremendous accomplishments,” Anita Dunn, an established senior Biden aide, said on MSNBC on Saturday. “Maybe it wasn’t a big debate. But he has been a great president.”
Asked whether Biden’s inner circle had mentioned his throwing in the towel during the conversation, Dunn replied: “No, our conversation was, ‘Okay, what do we do next?’
Biden marketing campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon accused the “Beltway class” of “counting Joe Biden out.”
O’Malley Dillon noted, “If we see a change in polling in the coming weeks, it would not be the first time that exaggerated media narratives have led to a temporary decline in the polls.”
However, the guarantee of white space has achieved nothing in reducing the crowd’s uneasiness. Last Friday, the editorial board of the influential New York Times unveiled a motion-setter urging Biden to step aside.
In East Hampton on Saturday, reporters traveling with the president saw a group of spectators holding signs that read: “Please move out for America,” and “Move out for democracy,” and : “We love you but it’s time.”
The outcome of the debate has divided Democratic donors, whose support is crucial to investing in a campaign that is poised to spend millions of dollars in an effort to preserve the White House for the next four years. Biden’s long fundraising advantage over Trump has eroded in recent months. Trump overtook Biden in both April and May amid a wave of support after he was convicted on 34 criminal charges at the maximum time in unelected New York.
Some donors have redoubled their efforts to rally around Biden in this era, others have been more stingy. A Democratic fundraiser reported that some Wall Boulevard megadonors intend to finance Biden’s campaign life in order to persuade him to step down to pave the way for another candidate. Every other camp intends to stop its donations altogether.
Nonetheless, several high-profile Democratic donors have come to Biden’s full defense.
LinkedIn founder and billionaire Democratic donor Reid Hoffman expressed his desire to calm fellow Biden supporters in a letter Friday over what he said was the president’s “very poor debate performance.” However he also said that it would be a ‘bad idea’ to launch a public campaign to remove him from office.
“This election is very close and I don’t know who will win,” Hoffman wrote. “But as a political philanthropist, with 129 days to go before the election, I’m doubling my bet that America will choose Biden’s decency, caring and proven success over Trump’s violence, lies and chaos.”
According to the actual FiveThirtyEight average, Trump is narrowly ahead of Biden in national opinion polls, as well as in several key swing states that could decide the final outcome of the November election.
A Democratic fundraiser said donors will be considering the vote in the coming days to plan their future steps.
Many are already considering who they would throw their weight behind if Biden were to step down, with Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer one of the names coming up most frequently. The three donors and bundlers also said that Democratic Space Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries was receiving benefits from the Wall Boulevard elite.
“The results of those surveys will help donors decide what to do next. , , If the result is negative then there will be consequences,” the fundraiser mentioned.
However the Biden campaign showed little outward signs of surprise over the weekend regarding the polls.
Geoff Garin, president of Hart Analysis and a pollster for the Biden campaign, said in a post on X Saturday night that two surveys he conducted in battleground states after the debate showed that it had “no impact on voter turnout “.
“The election was extremely close and competitive before the debate, and it’s still extremely close and competitive today,” Garin said.
Supplementary reporting via Alex Rogers in Washington