Democratic candidate Joe Biden and Republican candidate Donald Trump, former president of the United States, attend the presidential debate in Atlanta, Georgia, USA, on June 27, 2024.
Brian Snyder | Reuters
Democrats are working in the media on Sunday to try to change perceptions of President Joe Biden after he stumbled in the debates and his approval rating tumbled. Voters Crouched down, his party is scrambling for damage control.
“Certainly, it was a poor performance,” the South Carolina Democratic congressman said. Jim Clyburn“You can see it when you see what I call overpreparedness, and that’s exactly what happened the other night,” Trump, a Biden aide, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
The South Carolina Democrat followed a post-debate spin strategy that has been circulating among Biden supporters since Thursday’s debate: acknowledging the gaffe and then shifting the conversation to criticism of former President Donald Trump, who is the presumptive Republican presidential nominee.
“Joe Biden should continue to run on his record, because I believe when we compare it to what Trump has done over the last four years, we will see that Biden is exactly who we need going forward,” Clyburn said.
Former President Barack Obama and Bill Clinton A similar discussion on Friday followed this structure.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware), Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) also defended Biden during media visits on Sunday.
Despite the intense pressure, Biden’s performance in Thursday’s debate, marked by multiple instances of him stumbling over his words and stopping mid-answer, only intensified voter concerns about his age and his fitness to serve a second term as president.
new CBS News/YouGov In the poll, conducted June 28-29, 72% of voters surveyed said they didn’t think Biden should run for president, up from 63% in February. 72% of respondents also said they didn’t think Biden was mentally or cognitively capable of serving as president, up 7% from June 9.
Polls taken so soon after a major event like Thursday’s debate are knee-jerk reactions. A more accurate snapshot of public opinion may emerge once the initial enthusiasm dies down and voters have more time to think about it. The CBS News poll was conducted among 1,130 registered voters and has a margin of error of +/- 4.2 percentage points.
But these new numbers run counter to Biden’s claim that voters are not as critical of his debate gaffes as political pundits are.
“I understand the concerns about the debate. I understand. I didn’t have a very good night. But [is] “It wasn’t covered. Voters reacted differently than the experts did,” the president said Saturday at a campaign event in East Hampton, N.Y. “Since the debate, the polls have moved a little bit and our approval ratings are actually going up.”
Biden and Trump are scheduled to hold a second debate on September 10, but it is unclear whether the candidates will debate at all.
Ultimately, the controversy prompted Democrats to decide whether Biden should remain the presumptive nominee.
Some Democratic strategists and newspaper editorial writers around the country have suggested that Trump should step down before the Democratic National Convention in August and give up his delegates to allow someone else to challenge him in November.
Biden Camp David According to NBC News, Trump is expected to meet with his family on Sunday to discuss the future of his re-election bid.
Meanwhile, the Biden campaign has been raising a lot of money in the wake of the debate. As of Sunday morning, the campaign had $33 million Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said donations since Thursday totaled $26 million, with $26 million of that coming from grassroots donors.
Munoz added that nearly half of that grassroots money came from donors who gave to a campaign for the first time this election season.
