This weekend is supposed to be the make or break time on if President Biden will continue his campaign. But it’s the third such weekend in a row. And there are four more weeks to go until the Democratic National Convention gathers in Chicago.
After Biden’s terrible debate performance at the end of last month, the long July 4 holiday weekend was supposed to be make or break if he would soldier on. Speaking of soldiers, he stayed the course and hosted the NATO summit the following week, with an hourlong press conference at the end.
Then last weekend was supposed to be crucial about determining Biden’s future place at the top of the Democratic ticket, with Biden conferring with top party leaders: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on Thursday, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Friday and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Saturday afternoon.
But Saturday’s evening’s assassination attempt against Donald Trump changed matters. The shooting, just eight days ago, produced the brief interlude of national unity, with Biden talking on the phone with “Donald” and Trump ripped up his planned harsh convention speech.
The unity didn’t last but for a few hours as then Trump picked hardcore right-winger and major Trump flipflopper (from foe to suck up) Sen. J.D. Vance, on Monday and by Thursday Trump ripped up his new unity speech, or at least veering off the conciliatory prepared text on the teleprompter and rambled late into night about his familiar bogeymen. Biden may not have watched the debate rerun, but stuck home with mild COVID, you bet he watched that looong and divisive speech by Trump.
And so we’ve made it another make or break weekend, framed by dribs and drabs seeping out from what Jeffries and Pelosi and Schumer told Biden the prior weekend. They and other Dems don’t dislike Biden, they all say they love him and love what he did, but they worry about if he can beat Trump in November. As we write on Saturday, Biden hasn’t changed from where he was on April 25, 2023. That was the date that he decided to run for a second term.
Yes, there are polls that many Democratic voters want Biden to step aside and other polls showing Trump leading in several states that Biden won four years ago. While Biden could shed one of two of his 2020 states (like Georgia and Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin and Nevada and Arizona) and still win, three or more means a second Trump term in the White House.
Is Biden doomed? He doesn’t think so. At least at this point this weekend.
Biden can read the same polls, but he also has to be thinking about the 81,283,501 votes he won in 2020, seven million more than Trump and Trump’s own weakness shown by his lack of discipline, as the world saw when he wrecked his own convention speech.
And Joe Biden has never lost a general election since he ran for Senate at age 29 in 1972 beating an established GOP incumbent on the same ballot year that Richard Nixon’s 49-state landslide over George McGovern carried Delaware by 20 points.
Speaking of 1972, that was when McGovern’s running mate, Tom Eagleton, quit the race three weeks after being nominated. Late changes are possible, but risky.