In the two weeks since the unnerving (and excruciatingly painful) presidential debate, President Joe Biden’s camp has bandied about all sorts of explanations for the president’s poor performance, from sore throats to a hectic travel schedule that apparently caused him to “almost” fall asleep onstage. While an increasing number of Democrats have raised concerns about his age and capability, and in some cases asked the president to drop out of the race, it appears he’s not planning on going anywhere.
During a press conference on July 11 — Biden’s first solo presser in eight months — he addressed specific calls to have Vice-President Kamala Harris replace him at the top of the ticket. He touted his running mate’s résumé, saying, “I wouldn’t have picked her unless I thought she was qualified to be president.” And yet, he clarified that he was no longer thinking about his tenure as being a “bridge” to a new generation of Democrats, as he had said during his 2020 campaign. To explain this shift, he said, “What changed was the gravity of the situation I inherited,” adding that he feels compelled “to finish this job.”
At the end of the press conference, Biden was asked whether he’d drop out of the race if polling showed that Harris has a better chance of defeating Trump. (A CNN poll from July 2 found that Harris came “within striking distance of Trump in a hypothetical matchup.”) “No, unless they come back and said there’s no way you can win,” the president replied, adding in a stage whisper, “No poll’s saying that.”
It was the same defiant tone Biden has taken since the debate.“I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump,” he wrote in a two-page letter to congressional Democrats on July 8, following a weeklong congressional recess. The statement came after reports of a private call between several senior House Democrats — among them Representatives Jerry Nadler and Joe Morelle of New York, Adam Smith of Washington, and Mark Takano of California — who believe the president should end his campaign, according to USA Today. A Democratic insider told the newspaper that they are concerned about the 81-year-old’s ability to handle being in office for another four years.
According to the New York Times, the meeting was convened by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and functioned as a listening session during which lawmakers shared their constituents’ beliefs that Biden should withdraw. Meanwhile, several Democrats have been calling for Harris to step in as the party’s presidential candidate in the event Biden does step aside, and some representatives, like South Carolina’s Jim Clyburn and Pennsylvania’s Summer Lee, are openly signaling that they would endorse her. Momala, please?
Biden, for his part, has been obstinate about continuing his candidacy. In an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on July 5, he said he would not exit the race unless “the Lord Almighty comes down” and asks him to. In Monday’s letter, he told congressional Democrats he understood their “good faith fears and worries” but that he wouldn’t be running again if he didn’t “absolutely believe” he was the best person to beat Trump. Continuing to question his candidacy, he argued, only helped Trump’s campaign. To put an even finer point on things, the president called into MSNBC’s Morning Joe on July 8 and didn’t mince words: “I want to make sure I was right, that the average voter out there wanted Joe Biden and I’m confident they do,” he said in a phone interview, sounding well-rested and borderline feisty. “The bottom line here is that we are not going anywhere. I am not going anywhere.”
This story has been updated.
