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‘PANIC MODE’
Democrats scramble to limit damage as Biden’s stumbling debate heightens age fears
President Joe Biden’s halting debate performance on Thursday night has crystallised concerns about the 81-year-old incumbent’s fitness for office, leading some in his own party to begin questioning whether he should be replaced on the ballot before the November 5 presidential election. But there is no evidence Biden is willing to end his campaign – and it would be nearly impossible for Democrats to replace him unless he chooses to step aside.

Issued on: 28/06/2024 – 12:18

5 min
US President Joe Biden gave a stumbling performance during the first presidential debate hosted by CNN in Atlanta on June 27, 2024.
US President Joe Biden gave a stumbling performance during the first presidential debate hosted by CNN in Atlanta on June 27, 2024. © Marco Bello, Reuters
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FRANCE 24
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As its name suggests, the post-debate “spin room” is where rival campaigns scramble to shape the narrative of election face-offs, claiming a win for their candidate and seeking to frame the coverage in the hours and days ahead.

Candidate “surrogates” are expected to come out swinging on the back of a strong performance – or revert to damage control following a disappointing one.

Dumbstruck Democrats were very much in the latter mode on Thursday night, following a bruising clash between Biden and his Republican challenger Donald Trump that crystallised concerns about the incumbent’s age.

Backed into a corner by a mob of reporters, Biden’s surrogates fielded questions about the president’s fitness for office and whether he should be ousted from the Democratic ticket.

California Governor Gavin Newsom, a high-profile Democratic supporter of Biden, was pressed on whether he would consider stepping in for Biden. He dismissed the questions, saying, “I will never turn my back on him.”

Asked by the BBC about the possibility of opening the convention to other candidates or replacing the president, Deputy Campaign Manager Quentin Fulks said they were “not going to dignify that with a response”.

“President Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee, and President Biden is going to win this election,” he added.

‘The panic set in’
Biden, the oldest man to serve as US president, began the debate sounding hoarse and looking every bit his 81 years of age. He appeared to lose his train of thought while giving one answer, drifting from an answer on tax policy to health policy. He also fumbled on abortion rights, one of the most important issues for Democrats in this year’s election.

The president’s sometimes halting delivery – even as he repeatedly sought to confront Trump’s falsehoods about the economy, immigration and the January 6 Capitol insurrection – was likely to heighten the concerns of many Americans that he is too old to serve as commander-in-chief.

Prior to the debate, about 6 in 10 US adults (59%) said they were “very concerned” that Biden is too old to be president, according to Gallup data collected in June. Only 18% had the same level of concern about Trump, who is only four years younger. The poll found Biden’s age was also causing alarm among some Democrats: 31% said they were very concerned.

FRANCE 24’s Wassim Cornet weighs in on Biden’s performance in last night’s debate.03:58
FRANCE 24’s Wassim Cornet weighs in on Biden’s performance in last night’s debate. © FRANCE 24
Outside the spin room, Biden’s performance sparked a fresh round of calls for the Democrat to consider stepping aside.

“I think the panic set in,” said David Axelrod, a longtime advisor to former President Barack Obama on CNN, immediately after the debate about Biden’s performance. “And I think you’re going to hear discussions that, I don’t know will lead to anything, but there are going to be discussions about whether he should continue.”

Andrew Yang, who challenged Biden in the 2020 Democratic primary and dropped out early in the race, wrote on X that the president should “do the right thing” by “stepping aside and letting the DNC (Democratic National Convention) choose another nominee.” He added the hashtag #swapJoeout.

Biden’s own former communications director Kate Bedingfield offered a candidate assessment of his performance, telling CNN that the president had failed to prove he still had the energy and stamina for the job. She added: “There’s no two ways about it, that was not a good debate for Joe Biden.”

“I have been a surrogate for some presidential candidates in my time,” former Democratic US Senator Claire McCaskill told MSNBC. “When you’re a surrogate you have to focus on the positives,” she said.

But tonight, she said, she had to be “really honest”, adding: “He had one thing he had to accomplish, and that was to reassure America he was up to the job at his age. And he failed at that tonight.”

Too late to change?
The Biden campaign has just under two months to calm the waters before the Democratic National Convention, which kicks off in Chicago on August 19.

So far, no prominent Democratic officials have publicly broken ranks and there is no evidence Biden is willing to end his campaign. It would be nearly impossible for Democrats to replace him unless he chooses to step aside.

Every state has already held its presidential primary and Democratic rules mandate that the delegates Biden won remain bound to support him at the party’s upcoming national convention – unless he tells them he’s leaving the race.

Biden indicated that he had no plans to do that, telling supporters in Atlanta shortly after he left the debate stage, “Let’s keep going.” Biden campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt was even clearer, saying Friday: “Of course he’s not dropping out.”

PRESS REVIEW06:42
PRESS REVIEW © FRANCE 24
Vice-President Kamala Harris is Biden’s running mate, but that doesn’t mean she can swap in for him at the top of the ticket by default. Biden also cannot decree that she replace him should he suddenly decide to leave the race.

If Biden opts to abandon his re-election campaign, Harris would likely join other top Democratic candidates looking to replace him. But that would probably create a scenario where she and others end up lobbying individual state delegations for their support at the Democratic convention.

That hasn’t happened for Democrats since 1960, when John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson jockeyed for votes during that year’s Democratic convention in Los Angeles.

There is also the threat of legal action. If Biden were to abruptly leave the race, conservative groups have suggested they will file lawsuits around the country, potentially questioning the legality of the Democratic candidate’s name on the ballot.

But Elaine Kamarck, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, who wrote a book about the presidential nominating process and is also a member of the Democratic National Committee’s rulemaking arm, said that courts have consistently stayed out of political primaries as long as parties running them weren’t doing anything that would contradict other constitutional rights, such as voter suppression based on race.

“This is very clear constitutionally that this is in the party’s purview,” Kamarck told AP. “The business of nominating someone to represent a political party is the business of the political party.”

(With AP)