Top officials on President Joe Biden’s campaign presented an optimistic path forward on Thursday in an internal campaign memo obtained by Spectrum News as fresh polling shows most Democrats want the president replaced over questions of his age and mental acuity.

What You Need To Know

  • Top officials on President Joe Biden’s campaign presented an optimistic path forward on Thursday in an internal campaign memo obtained by Spectrum News as fresh polling shows most Democrats want the president replaced over questions of his age and mental acuity

  • The memo, authored by campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, conceded Biden’s performance at the first presidential debate with former President Donald Trump last month was “a setback,” but argued that increasingly ominous polling results did not spell doom for the president’s chances at reelection

  • The memo made no mention of the growing number of Democrats in Congress calling for Biden to step aside, nor did it discuss the concerns that a loss in November could hurt the party’s chances at keeping their majority in the Senate and winning back the House

  • They argued replacing Biden wouldn’t guarantee Democrats would beat Trump in the fall

The memo, authored by campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez, conceded Biden’s performance at the first presidential debate with former President Donald Trump last month was “a setback,” but argued that increasingly ominous polling results did not spell doom for the president’s chances at reelection. 

The memo made no mention of the growing number of Democrats in Congress calling for Biden to step aside, nor did it discuss the concerns that a loss in November could hurt the party’s chances at keeping their majority in the Senate and winning back the House — a concern driving much of the discussion in Washington in recent weeks.

“While there is no question there is increased anxiety following the debate, we are not seeing this translate into a drastic shift in vote share. In fact, this morning, a new ABC/Ipsos poll showed a tied race with no change since April,” the campaign officials wrote. “Our internal data and public polling show the same thing: this remains a margin-of-error race in key battleground states.”

While the ABC News/Ipsos/Washington Post poll they cited does in fact show Biden and Trump virtually tied nationally, it also found that 56% of Democrats and 73% of independents want Biden to “step aside and let someone else run.” If Biden were to step aside as the candidate, 77% of Democrats said they would be satisfied with Vice President Kamala Harris as their party’s nominee, though only 37% of independents said the same.

Another poll released Thursday by Pew Research Center found Trump up 44% to 40% nationally and that 71% of Biden supporters would prefer to replace both candidates, up from 62% in April. And just 24% of respondents told Pew they would describe Biden as “mentally sharp,” down from 53% in 2021. 

But Biden’s campaign argued in the memo that the internal polling they’re seeing shows voters aren’t deciding based on their perception of the 81-year-old Biden’s age.

“Instead, people are continuing to vote on the issues they care about – which are also the very issues we are winning on,” they wrote. “Voters turned on the debate knowing Joe Biden was old, but having forgotten how much they dislike Donald Trump. They left the debate with a fresh reminder of how extreme a second Trump term would be and how much they dislike him.”

Despite Trump’s chaotic, falsehood-ridden debate performance, much of the discussion post-debate has focused on Biden’s age as a result of his weakened voice and rambling, at times incoherent answers. National polls released since the debate have consistently shown Trump with an advantage, averaging out to around a two percentage point lead, according to the polling aggregator FiveThirtyEight. Polling averages of dozens of surveys in seven battleground states maintained by Decision Desk HQ and The Hill show Biden trailing in each one.

In the campaign memo, O’Malley Dillon and Rodriguez wrote that they believe Biden still has “multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes, but we know that” Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin “are critical to victory.” Biden was in Wisconsin at the end of last week, Pennsylvania on Sunday and is set to campaign in Detroit on Friday.

And besides, they argued, replacing Biden wouldn’t guarantee Democrats would beat Trump in the fall.

“In addition to what we believe is a clear pathway ahead for us, there is also no indication that anyone else would outperform the president vs. Trump,” the Biden campaign officials wrote in the memo. “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.”

Harris was set to be in North Carolina with Gov. Roy Cooper for a campaign rally targeting Black voters later on Thursday, the latest in a flurry of campaign stops where she has continued to advocate for Biden and has yet to address the calls for him to be replaced.

O’Malley Dillon and other Biden advisors were meeting with Democratic senators on Thursday to discuss their plans to stay in and win the race. Heading into the meeting, some expressed their doubts that key congressional races could be won with Biden still at the top of the ticket.

“Can we honestly say that we’re on a path to defeating Donald Trump and holding onto the Senate and holding onto the House of Representatives?” Colorado Sen. Michael Bennett told reporters. “What I’ve said is that I think that if things stay as they are, it’s likely that Donald Trump will win the election and we’ll lose the Senate and we’ll lose the House.”

West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he believes “by Sunday” that the party “should have some idea of what’s going on.” Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal told reporters “this meeting is another step, but more than one meeting, more than one press conference, more than one speech is necessary for Joe Biden to win this election.”

“We must win this election. It is an existential threat to have Donald Trump in the White House again and Joe Biden has to address and allay concerns so as to win this election,” Blumenthal added. “What I want to hear is the data that shows that there’s that path to victory.”

Biden is set to hold a press conference at the conclusion of this week’s NATO summit in Washington at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday.

The campaign officials also noted in the memo that Biden has focused on shoring up key groups of supporters, including by garnering statements of support after meeting with Democratic governors and mayors in the last week, and meeting with AFL-CIO leaders on Wednesday. And they highlighted investments in targeted advertising on Hispanic, African American and Asian American, Native Hawaaiin and Pacific Islander-centric media outlets.

“Next week, as Trump and extreme MAGA Republicans prepare to put their toxic extremism front and center at the Republican National Convention, the president will be on the road to rally with the backbone of the Biden-Harris coalition,” they wrote. “On Monday, he will mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act in Austin, Texas, followed by a trip to Las Vegas, Nevada for events with the NAACP, UNIDOS, and local leaders.”

The memo went on to focus on Trump’s potential electoral deficiencies, highlighting Project 2025 — a plan for the second Trump administration being organized by allies and former aides that the Republican Party’s presumptive nominee has attempted to distance himself from amid coverage of its more unpopular and extreme policy proposals. The focus of Democrats, they argued, must be on Trump and not on internal debate over Biden’s future.

“​​Next week, Donald Trump and Republicans will hold their convention in Milwaukee, once again putting their extreme Project 2025 agenda front and center for voters. It will be a key moment, and all of us – from President Biden on down – must do our part to take advantage of the opportunity. The surest way to help Donald Trump is to spend his convention talking about our nominating process instead of the MAGA extremism that will be on stage in Milwaukee,” they wrote. “We have a unique opportunity. Project 2025 is now more frequently searched than Taylor Swift and the NFL, which our team has seized on with ads tying Trump to the deeply unpopular agenda.”

But outside voices continued to warn focusing on Trump’s agenda and unpopular characteristics will not be enough to overcome voter concerns about Biden’s age and ability. At least ten House Democrats and one senator, Vermont’s Peter Welch, have called for him to step aside, with many more expressing deep concerns about his ability to lead the party forward. And other prominent Democrats, including major donors and former Obama administration officials, have warned the campaign is fighting the wrong battles as they try to stave off dissent.

Former Obama head speechwriter Jon Favreau, who runs the liberal media company Crooked Media and helps oversee an operation of thousands of Democratic volunteers, warned that ground-level Democrats working to keep the party in power “are scared and confused and they don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“What is the plan from the Biden campaign and from Joe Biden to not just hold on to Democrats and hold on to like elected Democrats — which is what they've been doing for the last week — but to actually win over the 15, 20% of voters who keep telling pollsters, including the the Biden campaign's internal polling that they're not sure whether they're going to pick between Trump or Biden,” Favreau said on the podcast of David Axelrod, the architect of President Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, on Thursday. “What's the plan to win over those voters after what some of them saw or heard about that debate?”