President Joe Biden’s re-election campaign faces a key test on Thursday as he prepares to answer questions at a much-anticipated news conference as his team meets privately with skeptical senators on Capitol Hill. More House Democrats called on him to drop out of the race, and he made a glaring mistake before the press conference.
Biden is seeking to show in a whirlwind day with NATO world leaders and evening news conferences that he will perform well over the next four years. Voters are watching and elected officials are deciding whether to press for alternatives.
But as he announced a deal to unite NATO countries in support of Ukraine, Biden called the country’s leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, “President Putin,” and gasps filled the room . He quickly returned to the microphone: “President Putin — he’s going to beat President Putin…President Zelensky,” Biden said.
He then said, “I’m very focused on beating Putin,” trying to explain the gaffe.
“I’m much better,” Zelensky replied. “You’re doing much better,” Biden responded.
Democrats face a thorny issue. Top donors, supporters and key lawmakers have cast doubt on Biden’s ability to continue his re-election bid after his recent debate performance, but the dogged 81-year-old president is refusing to give up as he prepares to face off against Republican Donald Trump Contest within the contest of Pu.
The Biden campaign laid out its path to retaining the White House in a new memo, calling winning “blue wall” states such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan the “clearest path” to victory. It also claimed that no other Democrat would do better than Trump.
“There is also no indication that anyone else will perform better than President Trump,” according to a memo from campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez obtained by The Associated Press.
The memo sought to refute “hypothetical polls of alternative nominees” as unreliable and said such surveys “fail to take into account the negative media environment that would be encountered by any Democratic nominee.”
Meanwhile, the campaign has been quietly surveying Vice President Kamala Harris’ voters to determine how she is viewed among voters, according to two people with knowledge of the campaign who spoke on condition of anonymity. spoke to The Associated Press about internal affairs.
People familiar with the matter said the poll was not necessarily showing she could replace Biden as the nominee but was meant to better understand how people view her. The study was conducted after Trump stepped up his attacks on Harris after the debate, according to another person familiar with the matter. The investigation was first reported by The New York Times.
While Biden expressed confidence in his chances, his campaign acknowledged Thursday that it was falling behind, and a growing number of the president’s White House aides and campaign staff have privately expressed doubts that he can turn things around.
But they’re taking their cues from Biden that he’s 100 percent there, except when he’s not, and there doesn’t appear to be any organized internal effort to convince the president to step down. His allies are aware that there will be more calls for him to step down this week, and they are preparing for it.
The number of House Democrats calling for Biden to step down grew to more than a dozen on Thursday. In the Senate, only Vermont’s Peter Welch has so far called for Biden to drop out of the race.
Senate Majority Leader Schumer invited Biden’s team to meet privately with senators over lunch to discuss concerns and a way forward, but some senators complained they would rather hear from the president himself.
One person said the 90-minute conversation with the president’s team contained no new data, polls or game plan on how Biden would defeat Trump, but that did not appear to change the senator’s mind. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door meeting.
One senator who requested anonymity to discuss private briefings said the meeting was candid, sometimes angry and painful because many in the room knew and loved Biden. Senators confront advisers about Biden’s debate performance and implications for this year’s Senate race
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat, later said: “I believe the president can win, but he has to be able to go out and address the concerns of his constituents. He has to be able to follow through. within days of speaking directly to voters.
Meanwhile, influential senators have strongly backed Biden, leaving the party in gridlock.
Vermont independent Sen. Bernie Sanders told The Associated Press that he thinks Biden “is going to win this election. I think he has a chance to win big.”
Sanders said he has been publicly critical of the campaign and said Biden needs to talk more about the future and his plans for the country. “As Election Day approaches, the choice is clear,” he said.
The campaign has reemphasized “blue wall” states and invested heavily in other battlegrounds such as Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina and Georgia, acknowledging that the path to defeating Trump in November is narrowing even as the team insists the Sun Belt States “are not out of reach.”
Although senior campaign aides wrote in the memo that Biden can win 270 electoral votes in a variety of ways, the memo also said these three states are crucial, which is why Biden will win during his recent travels. Reasons for prioritizing these areas. He went to Madison, Wisconsin; Philadelphia and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for the weekend. He’s leaving for Detroit on Friday.
Polls taken after the debate largely agreed that Democrats nationwide were skeptical of Biden’s ability to lead in the November election.
__ Associated Press writers Michael Balsamo, Colleen Long, Mary Claire Jalonick, Kevin Freking, Farnoush Amiri and Lynley Sanders contributed to this report Made a contribution.
