The fire is spreading in the Democratic ranks. A disastrous televised debate with Donald Trump was enough to unhinge Joe Biden's re-election campaign. After the stunned shock of the first few hours, then the panic swelling among party executives, a new stage was reached on Tuesday, July 2. With polls showing the first signs of damage to public opinion, some elected Democrats are openly considering the possibility of the president withdrawing from the race.
The party's leader in the House of Representatives, Hakeem Jeffries, urged his group to exercise restraint. His appeal didn't last long. Lloyd Doggett, an elected official from Texas, opened hostilities. He advised the president to make "the painful and difficult decision to step down." No one else, at this stage, has spoken out so candidly. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, Washington State's elected House member from a Trump district, represents the new Democratic generation. She had succumbed to a peculiar fatalism. "We've all seen what we've seen, we can't undo it and the truth, I think, is that Biden is going to lose to Trump," she said on a local television station.
The White House's handling of these moods was as flawed as the debate itself. For five days, Biden didn't bother to personally reassure the party leaders or the governors, the critical intermediaries. The governors will not be received until Wednesday. Nancy Pelosi, 84, elected representative of California and the former speaker of the House, validated her camp's questions. "I think it's a legitimate question," she admitted on MSNBC about Biden's performance in the televised debate. Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (Rhode Island) said he was "pretty horrified" by Biden's performance. According to him, Democrats want to know whether "it was a real anomaly and not just the way he is these days."
Another long-time ally of Biden in Congress, 83-year-old James Clyburn, shared his doubts on MSNBC. Clyburn, who in South Carolina was an advocate for Biden among Black voters in 2020, still supports him. But he already seems to be looking ahead. His concern: Stopping speculation about a surprise internal candidacy at an open convention. "This party should not, in any way, do anything to work around Ms. Harris. We should do everything we can to bolster her whether she's in second place or at the top of the ticket." The taboo has been lifted.
Polls, sometimes painful to read, have contributed to this sense of general feverishness. According to the one published by CNN on Tuesday, 75% of those questioned believed that the Democrats would have a better chance of victory if they withdrew Biden. The most striking piece of information was Vice President Kamala Harris's better score against the Republican candidate. Trump would lead her by just two points, the margin of error, compared with six against Biden.
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