Day: July 12, 2024

“I am all in. I’m riding with Biden no matter which direction he goes,” Clyburn said on NBC’s “Today” program.

Clyburn, 83, is a respected voice among Black Americans whose support is essential to Biden’s 2024 campaign. He has served in Congress for more than 30 years and played a leading role in Biden’s successful 2020 White House run.

“Please pass the torch to one of our many capable Democratic leaders so we have the best chance to defeat Donald Trump,” Representative Brittany Pettersen wrote on social media.

With most U.S. voters firmly divided into ideological camps, opinion polls show the race remains close.

Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House of Representatives, said he met with Biden on Thursday night to convey the range of thoughts they held about his candidacy. He did not say how Biden responded.

“I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward,” Jeffries wrote in a letter to colleagues.

Democrats are worried that Biden’s low approval ratings and growing concerns that he is too old for the job could cause them to lose seats in the House and Senate, leaving them with no grip on power in Washington should Trump win the White House.

Thursday’s press conference provided fodder for Biden supporters and doubters alike.

At one point, Biden referred to his vice president, Kamala Harris, as “Vice President Trump”. Hours earlier he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “President Putin” at the NATO summit, drawing gasps from those in the room.

Biden occasionally garbled his responses at the press conference but also delivered detailed assessments of global issues, including Ukraine’s war with Russia and the Israel-Gaza conflict, that served as a reminder of his decades of experience on the world stage.

A senior Biden campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity called the performance the “worst of all worlds. Not good. But not bad enough to make him change his mind.”

Another strategist who worked on Biden’s 2020 campaign said it would not quell Democrats’ concerns.

Fundraiser Dmitri Mehlhorn said other donors told him they saw a strong performance from the president. “This is the person who can beat Trump. The mistakes are baked in and the upside is strong,” he told Reuters.

Biden will try to shift the focus back to Trump at an evening rally in Detroit.

He and other Democrats have warned that a sweeping policy agenda crafted by conservative allies called Project 2025 would give Trump a blank check to pursue his whims. Trump has distanced himself from the project.

After two weeks of fallout from Biden’s halting debate performance, Democrats are hoping the bright spotlight shifts to Trump and his agenda next week when the Republican Party convenes in Milwaukee to formally nominate him for president.

An NPR/PBS poll released on Friday found Biden leading Trump 50% to 48%, a slight increase from his position before the debate. Biden fared slightly worse than Trump when third-party candidates were included in the questioning.

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Two recent polls show Vice President Kamala Harris beating Donald Trump in a hypothetical 2024 matchup.

On Friday, an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll of 1,174 registered voters suggests Harris, considered the best-placed person to replace President Joe Biden as the Democrat’s 2024 nominee should he drop out of the race, would narrowly beat Trump in November’s election (50 percent to 49).

The poll was released one day after an ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll of 2,431 adults found that Harris would beat Trump by three points overall (49 percent to 46) and among registered voters (49 percent to 47).

Newsweek reached out to Harris’ office via email for comment.

Biden has faced growing pressure, including from his own party, to end his reelection bid after his poor performance at the June 27 CNN debate.

Both surveys were conducted before Biden caused concern after he mistakenly referred to Harris as “Vice President Trump” during his high-stakes NATO press conference on Thursday evening. Just hours before, Biden also misspoke when he introduced Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin” before correcting himself.

Harris said she is still supporting Biden in the White House race and has given no indication that she wishes to replace him as the Democratic nominee for 2024.

The NPR/PBS News/Marist survey suggests if Biden decides to drop out of the presidential contest, neither Harris nor any other potential candidates would improve the Democrats‘ chances against Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in Greensboro, North Carolina, on July 11. Two polls suggest Harris would beat Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
Vice President Kamala Harris speaks in Greensboro, North Carolina, on July 11. Two polls suggest Harris would beat Donald Trump in the 2024 election.
Sean Rayford/Getty Images

The poll shows Biden beating Trump by two points (50 percent to 48) in the two-way presidential matchup. In a previous NPR/PBS News/Marist survey conducted before the CNN debate, Biden and Trump were tied at 49 percent.

In addition to Harris’ one-point lead over Trump, California Governor Gavin Newsom beat Trump by two points (50 percent to 48), while Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer tied with the Republican on 49 percent.

Reacting to the poll results, Lee M. Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, said: “Despite a series of cataclysmic political events, including Trump’s felony convictions and Biden’s abysmal debate performance, the race for the White House remains essentially unchanged.

“But Biden needs to restore confidence among his party faithful that he can win. And Trump needs to tread very lightly during the Republican convention about Project 2025 and avoid positioning the GOP as too extreme.”

Elsewhere, the ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll showed that Harris would perform better than Trump in a hypothetical 2024 election among women (52 percent to 44) and Hispanics (56 percent to 40).

Harris also enjoys 82 percent support among Black people and 86 percent among Black women, but these are not significantly different from Biden’s results for these demographics.

During his press conference at the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, Biden reiterated he has no intention of exiting the 2024 race.

“I’m not handing off to another generation; I’ve got to finish this job,” Biden said. “I’ve got to finish this job because there’s so much at stake.”