Joe Biden and his top allies have tried to reassure Democratic donors that he can defeat Donald Trump, after a “disastrous” performance that divided his wealthy backers over whether the US president should abandon his re-election bid, the Financial Times reported.
According to the British newspaper, Biden admitted that he “did not have a good night” when he met donors at a fundraising event in East Hampton, New York, yesterday, where the cost of entry ranged from $3,300 to $250,000 per person, according to the invitation.
“I got it”
“I understand the concern about the debate. I get it,” Biden told his supporters, the Financial Times reported, but he also noted that “the reaction of voters was different. Since the debate, the polls have shown our stock has risen.”
The bets moved significantly away from the likelihood of Biden winning during and after Thursday’s debate, as a poll conducted by Morning Consult on Friday showed that nearly half of Democratic voters said that Biden should step down in favor of another candidate.
Three donors familiar with the East Hampton fundraiser described the mood in the room as unenthusiastic, though the president appeared stronger than he did at the debate Thursday night.
Biden attended another fundraiser later Saturday in Red Bank, New Jersey, hosted by Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.
Top Democratic lawmakers and party elites have been reaching out to donors in recent days, and two party fundraisers said Chuck Schumer, the top Democrat in Congress, has tried to reassure many supporters about Biden’s candidacy since the debate.
There have been growing calls for the president to step down and allow another Democrat to be the party’s nominee for the White House before the November election.
Biden, 81, has faced questions for months about his age and fitness for office, but any concerns Democratic insiders had privately about the incumbent president came to light Thursday night, after nearly 50 million Americans watched Biden struggle during a live televised debate against Trump. The president stumbled, appeared to lose his train of thought and struggled to complete sentences.
Biden insists he will stay in the race, and campaign officials say he will participate in the second presidential debate scheduled for next September.
Standard flow
The campaign has touted what it says is a record influx of grassroots donations, or small donations, since Thursday, and a campaign official said Saturday morning that the campaign had raised more than $27 million from the debate through Friday evening.
“It wasn’t his best debate. But it was 90 minutes. He did tremendous things. It may not have been a great debate. But he was a great president,” Anita Dunn, a longtime senior adviser to Biden, told MSNBC on Monday.
When Dunn was asked if Biden’s inner circle discussed his withdrawal after the debate, she replied, “No, the conversation we had was: Well, what do we do next?”
split
The repercussions of the debate caused the division of Democratic donors, whose support is crucial to financing a campaign that is scheduled to spend hundreds of millions of dollars, in an attempt to secure the presence of a Democratic president for another 4 years in the White House. Thus, Biden’s long advantage in fundraising has declined more than Trump in the past few months. Last.
While some donors have redoubled their efforts to rally people around Biden, others are more wary. One Democratic fundraiser noted that some big Wall Street donors intend to continue funding Biden’s campaign while trying to persuade him to make way for another candidate, and another camp intends to withhold their donations altogether.
However, many prominent Democratic donors came to Biden’s full defense, according to the British newspaper.
Billionaire Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn and a Democratic financier, sought to calm his fellow wealthy Biden supporters in a letter on Friday, in which he admitted that the president’s performance in the debate was very poor, but added that launching a public campaign to get him to step down would be an idea. Bad.
“This election is so close, I don’t know who will win, but as a political donor, with 129 days to go, I am doubling down on my bet that America will choose Biden’s morality, caring, and proven success over Trump’s violence, lies, and chaos,” Hoffman wrote.
Many are considering who to support if Biden steps down, with Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer among the most popular names floated, and the newspaper quoted three donors as saying that House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is of interest to Wall Street elites.
