President Joe Biden , 81, Friday confused the election year as he sought to quash concerns about his mental fitness to remain the Democratic Party's 2024 nominee after post-debate pressure on him to stand down.
During a campaign stop in Madison, Wisconsin, a must-win "blue wall" state, Biden spoke with confidence as he defended his candidacy weeks before the Democratic National Convention and months before the November election.
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"There's been a lot of speculation: What's Joe going to do? Is he going to stay in the race?" Biden told a crowd Friday. "Well, here's my answer. I am running and going to win again."
"Some folks don't seem to care who you voted for," he said. "Well, guess what? They're trying to push me out of the race. Well, let me say this as clearly as I can: I'm staying in the race. I'll beat Donald Trump. I will beat him again in 2020."
Biden acknowledged the criticism of his poor debate performance last week, during which he appeared to lose his train of thought, and the scrutiny over his age, though the ill-timed mistake of 2020 instead of 2024 was quickly pounced on as further evidence of Biden's troubles.
"You've probably also noticed a lot of discussion about my age," the president said. "I wasn't too old to create over 15 million more jobs, to make sure 21 million Americans are insured by the ACA, to beat Big Pharma ... to pass the biggest climate bill in the history of the world."
In previewing Friday's event, the Biden campaign said the president would "underscore the stakes of this election for our democracy, our rights and freedoms, and our economy" during his fifth trip to Wisconsin this year.
"Following the president’s remarks, he will sit down for a national broadcast interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos," the campaign wrote in a statement.
Biden's Wisconsin event and his interview with Stephanopoulos are part of a broader endeavor to help him shore up support among members of the Democratic Party after a week of outreach efforts to congressional Democrats, Democratic governors, his campaign, and the Democratic National Committee. But as Biden addressed his audience, with one person holding a sign calling on him to step aside, a report circulated that Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) was telling other senators to encourage the president to do the same.
Prior to last week's debate, Wisconsin was one of Biden's most favorable battleground states. Former President Donald
Trump now has an average lead of 1.5 percentage points, according to RealClearPolitics .
“In the span of less than 10 days, the Biden campaign has gone from one of confidence to calamity to crisis," Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming told reporters during a pre-event call. "Confidence that they could still win this election to calamity at the debate to crisis right now. The Democratic Party, nationally and in Wisconsin, is in disarray right now.”
“This is Joe Biden coming to 4-1 Madison, Wisconsin, and trying to rescue his campaign,” he said.
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But Biden projected confidence en route to Wisconsin earlier Friday and responded, "Yes," when asked by a reporter whether he could beat Trump more broadly as he boarded Air Force One.
A day earlier, amid Democrats openly calling on him to stand down, Biden told the crowd gathered at the White House for Independence Day that he is "not going anywhere."
David Sivak contributed to this report.
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