Apparent closing of ranks within the Democratic Party amid the crisis surrounding Joe Biden’s candidacy, with a clear message: the main goal is to defeat Donald Trump. A group of party leaders met with the president on Wednesday afternoon (local time) to analyze the situation. Ten visited the White House in person, and another 14 participated remotely. “You have our support,” said Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, flanked by New York Governor Katy Hochul and Maryland Governor Wes Moore.
“The answer is that everyone is focused on the path to victory. All the governors agree on that, and President Biden agrees. We are working together to make it very clear that our path to victory in November is priority number one. And that is the president’s number one priority. So that’s what we’re trying to do. The conversation has been honest and open,” said Walz, who is also chairman of the Democratic Governors Association. Moore has similarly assured, “President Biden is our nominee.”
The image at the end of the meeting leaves open the question of why the other seven attendees did not also appear before the media to reinforce the image of unity. The other question is whether this oxygen ball Biden receives will be enough to ease the pressure to resign.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and California Gov. Gavin Newson, who also attended the rally in person, pledged their support through X once the rally ended. “Biden is our candidate. He’s doing this to win, and I’m supporting him,” the Michigan governor said. Whitmer and Newson are among the names that have been bandied about in recent days as possible Biden replacements.
Biden’s team has assured that during the call with governors, the president reiterated his determination to “defeat the existential threat” posed by Donald Trump in light of the November 5 election. “All participants reiterated their shared commitment to do everything possible to ensure that President Biden and Vice President Harris defeat Donald Trump in November,” he said, according to Reuters.
The meeting came amid the campaign crisis sparked by the failure of his personal televised appearance with Donald Trump last Thursday and by information from the New York Times that a close aide to Biden reported that the president had confessed to him that he is aware that he may not be able to save his candidacy if he fails to convince his followers in the coming days that he can continue.
Some of the statements that the White House denies are true. In a call to his entire campaign team on Wednesday afternoon, Biden had once again insisted that he would continue as a candidate in the presidential race: “I am the nominee of the Democratic Party. Nobody is pushing me out.”
In a desperate attempt to show he still has the ability to continue the campaign, Biden has ramped up his agenda in the coming days, visiting Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and giving an interview to ABC News on Friday rush hour.
The image of unity that the governors are projecting is not enough to mask the trickle of Democrats who continue to call on the president to reconsider his candidacy. After Texas' Lloyd Dogged broke the silence, Congressman Seth Moulton was among the last to speak out. Moulton has assured that he “deeply respects President Biden” but has “doubts about his ability to defeat Donald Trump.”
“We must have all viable options on the table,” he said in the statement he made public.
One of the largest donors calls on Biden to withdraw
After initial paralysis among Democratic Party donors, who have only voiced their concerns internally, Netflix co-founder and one of the Biden campaign’s largest donors, Reed Hastings, has called for the president to resign. “Biden must step aside to allow a strong Democratic leader to defeat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous,” Hastings said in an email to the US president on Wednesday. The New York Times.
That one of the donors has finally decided to take the step is a bad sign for Biden. In times of crisis, the support of these numbers is crucial to the continuation of the campaign.
At the same time, the New York Times has published a new survey in which 74% of voters say Biden is too old to be a candidate. A figure that is repeated in the previously published survey by CBS (72%) and CNN (75%). According to the poll, Trump is ahead of Biden in the race for the White House by 49% to 43%. This is a three-point change in the Republican's favor compared to the week before the debate. Moreover, the media emphasizes that this is the largest advantage that Trump has registered since 2015 in the surveys conducted by the newspaper.