It’s been about two weeks since President Biden’s disastrous head-to-head with Trump and far from the story moving on, it has come to dominate the campaign and become a wound that will not heal.
At the time of writing rumors are swirling that staffers inside his own campaign are trying to convince him the greatest thing he can do for his country is step down. As this article in “The Guardian” makes clear…
“Joe Biden’s position appeared shaky on Thursday, amid reports that his aides and advisers were discussing how to persuade him to leave the presidential race while his own campaign was secretly testing Kamala Harris’s popularity, suggesting it was preparing for that very scenario.
With the US president scheduled to face journalists at a potentially pivotal news conference marking the end of Nato’s 75th anniversary summit, two separate New York Times reports suggested his efforts to keep his candidacy afloat were close to foundering.
The Times reported on its website that his campaign’s analytics team was quietly testing the strength of Harris, the vice-president, among voters in a match-up against Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.
Biden has consistently argued that he has the best chance of beating Trump, citing polling evidence.“
Biden has also lost the backing of key fundraisers, celebrities such as George Clooney and Democratic politicians who are increasingly calling on the President to stand aside.
On the other hand, not everyone involved in American politics is hoping the President throws in the towel. As “The Guardian” proclaims in another article…
“Donald Trump and his campaign want Joe Biden to stay in the race, according to people familiar with the matter, and have discussed taking steps to ensure they don’t push the president to withdraw amid escalating panic among Democrats following his recent debate performance.
The latest thinking inside Trump’s campaign is for them not to pile on the concern about Biden’s age and mental acuity in case their attack ads push Biden to step aside.”
It was hard to see a path to victory for Biden after his debate performance and it seems next to impossible now with too many on his own side going public with their doubts. His most recent gaffe, addressing President Zelenskiy as ‘President Putin’ at an event when it surely would have been impressed upon how important it was he not make even the tiniest of errors, shows the scale of the challenge he faces, where slip ups that other candidates in an election would justifiably dismiss as tiny missteps are instead woven into the overarching narrative of Biden’s decline.
For a world that fears the possibility of a second Trump presidency, nail-biting times lie ahead.
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