One year ago, Joe Biden made the riskiest bet of his reelection campaign: he agreed to debate Donald Trump.
It was a catastrophic error on Biden’s part and marked the end of his bid for a second term. Less than one month later, he suspended his campaign and quickly endorsed former Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Biden’s hoarse and weak voice, combined with his inexplicable comment that “we finally beat Medicare,” stunned his supporters during the debate.
“It’s the most consequential presidential debate that’s ever happened,” said Christopher Galdieri, a political scientist at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. “It brought all of these concerns Democrats had had about Biden to the fore. Everybody saw it. It was a terrible performance.”
The June 27, 2024, faceoff was the earliest-ever debate between presidential candidates. Yet, the stark contrast of a fumbling Biden, 81, against an alert Trump, 78, signaled the end for the Democratic president and the beginning of a long political wilderness for Democrats, to the delight of Republicans.
“I mean, the debate saved the country because Donald Trump is president,” said Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC).
The debate was supposed to be Biden’s chance to quell fears about his mental acuity after his multiple blunders, public gaffes, and stumbles in office worried the public.
It instead marked a crucial turning point in exposing Biden’s fitness for office, and Democrats have not yet recovered.
Biden’s risky bet backfires
The Biden campaign challenged the Trump campaign to a debate in late June, three months before presidential debates are traditionally held. This move was meant to calm fears from an electorate that polling showed didn’t want an octogenarian to remain in the White House. Biden’s aides believed that a dominant Biden facing off against Trump would alleviate his sluggish approval ratings.
The early debate was a tacit acknowledgment from Biden’s team that something needed to be done to persuade voters that he was up to the task of another four years in office. Biden self-immolating on national television in September would be too late to swap him out for another candidate.
Trump, who skipped all GOP primary debates, eagerly accepted the challenge, once again taunting Biden over his lagging mental acuity. But the gamble backfired for Biden, with a nation watching in shock at a president’s inability to form coherent sentences or even understand questions lobbed from the moderators.
Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist who has worked on presidential campaigns for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, said that at a Washington, D.C., debate watch party with roughly 200 people, there was a “deflated atmosphere” after attendees saw Biden’s performance.
“I think there’s a lot of dishonesty that was revealed that day on both sides,” Ceraso said. “I think Trump consistently is deceiving in a lot of ways, and people know that about him, but I think there might have been a little bit of shock … by what folks thought was going on with Biden and what they saw with Biden.”
Republicans vindicated in criticisms of Biden
Biden and his debate prep team, which includes at least 18 people led by former chief of staff Ron Klain, decamped to Camp David in Maryland to hold several mock 90-minute practices.
Bob Bauer, Biden’s lawyer, played the role of Trump as the former president rehearsed answers for potential questions.
However, the former president’s aides claimed he woke up with a cold two days before the debate after Biden bombed onstage. They said this illness hindered Biden’s performance against Trump. Other aides claimed Biden rehearsed too much, which also dragged him.
Immediately after the debate, Harris defended Biden in an interview with CNN anchor Anderson Cooper.
“Yes, there was a slow start, but it was a strong finish,” Harris said. Neither Democrats nor Republicans were buying the excuses.
“There’s no question it was a disaster. It may have led to the election of Donald Trump,” said Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist. “His political legacy is definitely struggling now because of that disastrous debate performance.”
Biden’s decision to debate Trump so early only proved Republican criticisms about his age correct and led to a startled Democratic Party, with members quickly calling for his removal.
Republican lawmakers agreed with the assessment as they reflected on the debate.
“I think voters overall saw just the true dysfunction of the Democrat Party, and compared that very easily with the policies that President Trump wanted to bring because he had already done it,” said Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL). “And I think it crystallized the distinction not just between the two men, but really between the two political parties in America.”
Several Republicans claimed that even if Biden had eked out a decent performance similar to his energy at last year’s State of the Union, Trump still would have won the race.
“I think the outcome would have been the same either way,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said, adding that Trump’s margin of victory could have increased if Biden remained on the ticket. “But who knows, maybe, maybe even bigger.”
“I think he would have won by even more,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) of Trump’s victory. “But people might have written it off to President Biden’s disability, rather than the philosophical divide.”
Democrats bemoan lack of primary process after Biden exit
Democrats were less keen to reflect on how Biden’s blunders last year kneecapped his party.
“We’re living the legacy right now. We are where we are today because of that debate,” said Jared Moskowitz (D-FL).
“I don’t relitigate the past. I’m focused on winning back this house and preventing Donald Trump from having a four-year term of hurting the American people,” said Rep. Steven Horsford (D-NV).
After Biden’s exit from the 2024 race, Harris quickly racked up 99% of the pledged and automatic delegates to become the Democratic nominee. Within weeks, Harris assembled a presidential team that raised $1 billion, an unprecedented feat, in just three months. But ultimately, Trump would trounce the former vice president, winning both the popular vote and all seven battleground states.
The lack of a true primary process likely harmed Democrats, strategists said.
“There was not much of a mechanism for us to really have much of a primary process or discussion. I mean, it was too late,” said Randy Jones, who served as Andrew Yang’s national press secretary and the national political director when he ran for president in 2020. “I think that’s certainly our downfall.”
“We needed other candidates to have run in that election,” added Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), chairman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “The president needed to have dropped out, not just after the debate, but before that.”
Former Minnesota Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips was one of the very few lawmakers willing to challenge Biden’s ability to campaign again for the White House. But his warnings went unheeded until the June debate.
“He was correct and sadly, what happened at the time was that the Democratic Party was, by and large, formally and informally, rallied around Biden,” said Harley Lippman, appointed by Biden to the U.S. Agency for International Development Partnership for Peace Fund Advisory Board, about Phillips’s presidential run.
Some Democrats have continued to defend Biden despite the revelations that allies shielded him from further scrutiny from the public.
“Yes, he had issues with his age, but I spent a lot of time with him when I traveled with him on Air Force One, you know he knows his stuff,” said Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI). “A president doesn’t have to debate every day to do his job. He just has to make important decisions, make good decisions.”
Some experts have argued that Biden put Harris in a tough spot to finish the campaign cycle and hindered her ability to break away from his stances on unpopular policy issues.
“Kamala Harris, as we can see, was just not a strong candidate,” Lippman said. “She was not effective because, one, she flip-flopped on positions. Second, they asked her if she would criticize Biden. She had no criticism, I mean, how credible is that?”
History has its eyes on Biden’s legacy
Three days before the June debate, the Democratic Party’s unfavorability rating stood at 55% with the favorability rating only at 41%, according to YouGov.
By March of 2025, Democrats’ approval rating hit a record low at 29%, according to CNN. The debate performance fed into voter distrust of the party after lawmakers had spent months denying that Biden faced any serious mental decline and criticizing the media for any such reports.
Democrats remain in a leaderless rut over how to best retake control of the House or the Senate during next year’s midterm elections. However, questions over who knew about Biden’s struggles aren’t going away anytime soon.
Multiple books published by reporters have detailed an alleged cover-up scheme from Biden’s allies to hide his mental and physical decline from the public.
The surprising revelation that Biden has an aggressive form of prostate cancer added more speculation that the former president’s inner team shielded Biden from scrutiny.
Trump and congressional Republicans have opened four investigations into Biden’s decline in the aftermath of these revelations, with a particular focus on whether Biden was cognizant of the presidential actions he signed via autopen. House Oversight chairman James Comer (R-KY) is holding closed-door interviews with several Biden aides, including former White House physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, and former White House staff secretary Neera Tanden.
Tanden claimed she was authorized to use Biden’s autopen and pushed back against claims that Biden’s inner team was hiding his decline from the public.
EX-BIDEN AIDE NEERA TANDEN TELLS OVERSIGHT COMMITTEE SHE WAS AUTHORIZED TO USE AUTOPEN
Democrats conceded that part of Biden’s legacy is tarnished after the events of the 2024 campaign.
“He’s politically radioactive. There’s just no question about it,” Bannon said. “But I think he’s going to be one of those presidents that historians treat kindly down the road.”