President Joe Biden’s campaign team released a memo Saturday claiming the octogenarian’s underwhelming showing in the first presidential debate for 2024 “did not change the horse race.”
The Hill reports Biden campaign chief Jen O’Malley Dillon delivered the missive, stating the time has come to move on:
Flash polls from CNN, 538, SurveyUSA, Morning Consult, and Data for Progress show what we expected: The debate did not change the horse race.
This mirrors what the campaign’s internal post-debate polling showed: The president maintained his support among his 2020 voters and voters’ opinions were not changed.
The memo runs contrary to a slew of media and political observations – including Democrats – that Biden’s showing again former President Donald Trump was an unmitigated disaster.
He stumbled over his words, was loose with the facts, and at times seemed to be totally disengaged from the task at hand.
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The poor showing came after Biden spent a week in self-imposed isolation with his team to try and get ready for the task ahead at “debate camp,” as Breitbart News reported.
“It’s a familiar story: Following Thursday night’s debate, the beltway class is counting Joe Biden out,” O’Malley Dillon went on to say in the memo.
She maintained,”On every metric that matters, data shows it did nothing to change the American people’s perception, our supporters are more fired up than ever, and Donald Trump only reminded voters of why they fired him four years ago and failed to expand his appeal beyond his MAGA base.”
A poster of U.S. President Joe Biden with the word “Failure” stamped across his face is seen as people wait to hear former U.S. President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speak during a campaign rally at the Historic Greenbrier Farms in Chesapeake, Virginia, on July 28, 2024. (JIM WATSON/AFP via Getty Images)
Demonstrators hold signs outside of a fundraiser for U.S. President Joe Biden in East Hampton, New York, on Saturday, June 29, 2024. (Amanda L. Gordon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The call for Democrats to remain calm came as a sense of concern is growing inside the top ranks of the that leaders of Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee are not taking seriously enough the impact of the president’s troubling debate performance, AP reports.
DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez held a Saturday afternoon call with dozens of committee members across the country, a group of some of the most influential members of the party.
They largely ignored Biden’s weak showing and the growing the avalanche of criticism that has since transpired.