Democrats are biding their time until after this week’s NATO summit to pressure President Biden into ending his re-election bid, a party pollster told The Post Thursday — as prominent lawmakers teased that more of their colleagues would soon come out against the commander-in-chief.
“I’m of the belief that this is very close to the end,” said John Zogby, pollster and founder of an eponymous marketing and political consulting firm.
“[I think] that the NATO summit wasn’t a test so much for Biden as it was a holding action,” he added. “You don’t embarrass the world’s leader in front of world leaders. You’re going to see more and more Congress people come out and I think the end is very near.”
So far, 11 congressional Democrats have already publicly called on Biden, 81, to step away from the 2024 race, but more have hinted at their distress with the course of the incumbent’s campaign, particularly following his disastrous debate against Donald Trump on June 27.
“I think everyone will be talking over Friday, Saturday and by Sunday you should have some idea of what’s going on,” Sen. Joe Manchin (I-WV) told reporters Thursday on his way into a lunchtime meeting with top Biden campaign officials.
Manchin, who is leaving Congress early next year, reportedly had to be talked out of publicly breaking with Biden during an appearance on a Sunday morning public affairs program following the debate, at which Biden frequently appeared confused and frail.
The strongest suggestion that Biden’s fate would be sealed after the gathering of NATO heads of government in the nation’s capital came from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Democrats were “all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short.”
Apparently ignoring Biden’s stated desire earlier this week to remain in the race, the 84-year-old Pelosi added that “I want him to do whatever he decides to do. And that’s the way it is. Whatever he decides, we go with. I think it’s really important and I would hope everyone would join in.
“Let him deal with this NATO conference,” Pelosi said. “This is a very big deal. Thirty heads of — over 30 heads of state are here. He is the host of it, and that means not just hosting, it means orchestrating the discussion and setting the agenda. And he’s doing so magnificently. And I’ve said to everyone, let’s just hold off whatever you’re thinking. Either tell somebody privately, but you don’t have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week.”
On Thursday, Politico reported that Pelosi’s comments were meant as a “subtle green light” for Democrats — particularly those in battleground districts — to speak up and speak out if they want Biden off the party’s ticket.
The NATO summit was scheduled to be capped by a press conference featuring Biden, which one Democratic operative called “another make or break moment” for the octogenarian.
“I feel like the narrative needs to change,” this person said. “So either Dems need to get behind Biden or he needs to step aside. But we are losing time.”
What to know about the fallout from President Biden’s debate performance:
- President Biden’s poor performance in the first 2024 presidential debate left some Democrats unsure of his fitness for office and future as the party’s candidate.
- Biden told a crowd at a North Carolina rally the day after the debate that he doesn’t “debate as well as I used to” — but insisted that he can still “do this job.”
- The New York Times editorial board called on the president to serve the country by dropping out of the race. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a similar editorial a day later.
- In a pre-taped interview with ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos, Biden claimed that his “bad episode” at the debate was the result of a cold and not any cognitive issues.
- Biden has rejected calls for him to step down from fellow Democrats, insisting to Stephanopoulos that he is the most qualified to win the election. At a Wisconsin rally, he declared that he is “running and going to win again.”
- 10 congressional Democrats have now joined in calling for Biden’s exit from the race. Former Biden supporter, George Clooney, echoed these calls in an op-ed published in The New York Times just weeks after he helped lead a record-breaking fundraiser for the Democrat.
- Democratic voters have continued to raise concerns about Biden’s nomination since the debate, with speculations and suggestions for replacement nominees running rampant.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) played coy about the Biden situation Thursday, saying that his conference was “engaged in a process of talking to each other” and declining to comment about pressure from donors or other outside stakeholders
Jeffries also denied that he’s worried that Biden could become a liability for his most vulnerable members.
Meanwhile, multiple reports indicated Thursday that doubts about the president have spread to members of his own campaign team — who have begun quietly conducting surveys pitting Vice President Kamala Harris against Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, the New York Times reported.
“He needs to drop out,” one Biden campaign official told NBC News. “He will never recover from this.”
“No one involved in the effort thinks he has a path,” another source told the outlet.
Zogby suggested that polling Harris against Trump would serve two separate purposes: either “she does worse, and that Biden has a reason to stay in the race,” or, “more than likely, they’re testing to see if he can hand the reigns of the campaign over to her.”
Shortly after the debate, Biden deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty sent out a fundraising blast bashing the “bedwetting brigade” of Democrats who want Biden to step aside.
He attached polling from left-wing shop Data for Progress that showed Biden and Harris faring better against Trump than other pretenders, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
“The question for me, and a lot of us, is: Who is the best person to beat Donald Trump?” another individual described as working to re-elect Biden told NBC News. “There are a lot of us that are true blue that are questioning our initial thoughts on that.”
Let’s break down Clooney’s role in Biden’s 2024 presidential campaign
- George Clooney has played a role in Democratic fundraising since Barack Obama’s 2012 run, including leading a benefit for former Vice President Joe Biden in 2020 and another in June 2024.
- Clooney, joined by actresses Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand, helped Biden take in a record $30 million-plus at a star-studded fundraising event in New York City just last month.
- Just weeks later, Clooney turned on Biden and published an op-ed in the New York Times calling for the 81-year-old to leave the race following his atrocious debate appearance.
- Clooney wrote that Biden “cannot win” in November, adding that the president is not the man he used to know, but rather “the same man we all witnessed at the debate.” The actor even said that “every senator and Congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private” agrees that Biden must step down.
- Donald Trump blasted Clooney for his comments, telling him to “get out of politics and go back to TV,” and said the actor had “turned on Crooked Joe like the rats they both are.”
- A report also revealed that Obama knew ahead of time what Clooney planned to write and did not object to the op-ed.
Campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez and campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon argued in a memo sent to their team Thursday that there is a “clear pathway ahead for us,” the New York Times reported.
“There is also no indication that anyone else would outperform the president vs. Trump,” they went on.
“Hypothetical polling of alternative nominees will always be unreliable, and surveys do not take into account the negative media environment that any Democratic nominee will encounter. The only Democratic candidate for whom this is already baked in is President Biden.”
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to an inquiry from The Post.