Democrats faced a crisis on Friday as a broad swath of lawmakers, party officials and activists began actively exploring the possibility of fielding an alternative to President Biden about four months before Election Day, something that had previously been a pipe dream for pundits and concerned voters.
For two years, Democratic leaders confined concerns about Biden's performance and age to private meetings and informal conversations, wary of weakening the incumbent president in a rematch with former President Donald Trump.
But Biden's performance in the debate on Thursday was choppy and at times incoherent, even on politically advantageous topics such as abortion rights, which led to the controversy exploding into public view.
“Biden's failure to rise to the occasion is going to cause a serious re-evaluation within his party. They're going to say, is he just having a bad night or is he ready to move forward?” the Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader who has long enjoyed a warm relationship with Biden, said in an interview a few hours after the debate.
Asked for his own assessment, Sharpton said he hoped it was just a “bad night.”
“But our failure to respond to this situation will not be easily forgotten,” he added.
On Capitol Hill, some Democrats openly acknowledged Biden's performance had been dismal, while others offered brief signs of support, hoping the focus would return to Trump's lies.
In Atlanta, Biden aides met privately with anxious donors, whose fears about what one adviser to a major party donor called “Trump Collapse II” reached new heights overnight.
In message threads, Democrats vented despair, expressed regret for not pushing for a more competitive primary and speculated about alternatives to Biden. And on MSNBC's “Morning Joe,” a bastion of support for the president, one host wrote: That he would withdraw from the race.
Some Democrats have privately and frankly said Biden shouldn't be their nominee, but Biden's critics acknowledged that as of Friday morning there was no agreement, let alone a formal plan, about how or even whether to urge Biden to drop out.
Many noted that such an unusual process carried huge political risks and would plunge the party into a messy and uncertain internecine struggle in the final stages of the election campaign.
While the impact is yet to be seen in polls, Democratic leaders were quick and clear to reject the idea that Biden would or should leave office.
Effectively, the decision is the president's alone. He would almost certainly have to remove his own delegates so they can support other candidates. So far, the president and his campaign have indicated he has no plans to step down.
The campaign's communications director, Michael Tyler, said there had been “no” internal discussions about replacing Biden.
Speaking at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday, Biden acknowledged his failures but stressed he plans to press on with the campaign.
“Obviously, I know I'm not young,” he said. “I can't speak as smoothly as I used to. I can't argue as well as I used to. But I know what I know.”
“I know how to do this job,” he added. “I know how to get things done. Like millions of Americans, I know I can get knocked down and get back up.”
One senior party strategist said the only Democratic leaders who could convince Biden to drop out of the race were top members of Congress, former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton and, of course, first lady Jill Biden and Biden's family.
But some Democrats were quick to voice their support.
“Sometimes debates go horribly,” Obama said in a statement, “trust me, I know. But this election is a choice between someone who has spent their whole life fighting for ordinary people and someone who only thinks about themselves.”
Asked whether Biden should drop out of the race, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the top House Democrat, said “no.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California said she did not think Biden should step down as the party's nominee and was not aware of anyone pressuring him to do so, while other aides emphasized their support.
But other lawmakers were forthright. “I still don't understand what happened,” said Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn. “It was a terrible debate. We all have to acknowledge that.”
What was left unsaid was equally revealing. Asked whether Biden would be able to do the job, Rep. Ro Khanna of California, a Biden surrogate, said, “We'll defer to the president on that.”
“We can do it as a team,” he said. “We have a great team that helps us govern.”
He added, “Biden is the one who won the delegates.”
Colorado Governor Jared Polis, a Democrat, said Biden presented a “compelling vision for our country” during the debate, but did not directly answer a question about whether Biden should remain a candidate, instead repeatedly directing the conversation back to Trump.
“Donald Trump should not remain the Republican nominee after his felony conviction and his demonstrated erratic and untruthful behavior,” he said.
Julián Castro, a Texas Democrat and former housing secretary who criticized Biden's memory during a 2019 Democratic primary debate, criticized party leaders for working to ensure Biden wasn't facing a credible challenger.
“Once Biden decided to run, the Democrats closed off all other options,” he said. “Only the establishment can reverse that four months before the election.”
Biden's team was busy reassuring supporters on Friday morning. In Atlanta, downstairs from a coffee shop called Jittery Joe's, Biden campaign officials were huddled with big donors who had made the trip to the debate, including campaign chair Jennifer O'Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez.
O'Malley Dillon acknowledged Biden's poor performance, according to multiple attendees, but tried to draw parallels to Obama's weak showing in the first debate in 2012. She was Biden's deputy campaign manager in that election, which Obama won.
Many party leaders have endorsed Biden, including Democrats who are often discussed as future presidential candidates, such as Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and California Governor Gavin Newsom.
And while Sharpton's tone seemed to have softened by Friday afternoon, he said his post-debate impression remained the same.
“If you're on your way somewhere and you see new shoes in a store window, you might keep your old ones,” he says. “They might not be as glamorous, but they're the ones that fit you and will take you where you want to go.”
Biden is “the right person for the job,” he said.
The president has weathered tough debates before, and campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz posted on social media that “11pm to midnight was the best period of grassroots fundraising since the start of my campaign.” The campaign added Friday that its team raised $14 million on the day of the debate and the morning after.
Dmitri Mellhorn, a political adviser to Reid Hoffman, one of the party's top donors, warned his network not to make any rash decisions.
“Joe had a terrible night,” Mellhorn wrote. “The likelihood of Trumpocalypse II has increased significantly.”
He added: “Yet we all need to take a deep breath. Reactive or panicky behavior will rarely succeed.”
Sen. John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, was returning from Israel during the debate and said he was “heartbroken” by the video and online reactions.
“I think we can all agree it was tough, but it really hurt my heart to see how everyone just panicked and huddled so quickly,” he said, reflecting on his own halting debate performance in 2022. “It wasn't Joe Biden's best day, but that's not the whole story of the great president he has been. And how can anyone ignore the alternatives?”
He said voters should “keep calm, enjoy a beer and have a little fun on the Fourth of July.”
But some members of the DNC have struggled with whether Democrats were right to follow Biden, even though it is inconceivable that the DNC — which is technically the political arm of the Democratic White House — would oppose a sitting president of its own party.
“As members of the DNC, I feel responsible that some of us had early concerns about Biden running for a second term, but few of us actually voiced them publicly,” said Bert Dame, a DNC member from Hawaii. “We should have at least anticipated that this might be an issue, and we created a structure that is now difficult to address.”
“We are ashamed,” he added.
While party officials have been reluctant to publicly voice concerns about Biden's age and health, voters have made them clear.
“Biden needs to step aside, but that's not what I went into the debate thinking,” said Mack Hudson, 57, an independent voter from Tucson, Arizona. “I'm hoping for the best. Trump may lose, but Biden can't. There's still time for a new candidate.”
The moment marked a painful conclusion for the small number of Democrats who had publicly called for Biden to step down.
James Zogby, a pollster and longtime Democratic National Committee member, said watching the debate left him “sad and distressed.”
He and others called for competitive primaries but were rebuffed by party leaders.
“If that were to happen, it would be a dramatic event and potentially deadly,” he said. “I'm outraged that they put us in this situation.”
The report Shane Goldmacher, Theodore Schleifer, Maya King, Reid J. Epstein and Zoran Kanno Youngs.