‘WTF’: Panicked Dems start looking for alternatives to Biden

Democrats are so panicked over President Joe Biden’s faltering debate performance some are actively discussing what was once unspeakable: replacing him on the ticket.

Three strategists close to three potential Democratic presidential candidates said they had been bombarded with text messages throughout the debate. One adviser said they received pleas for their candidate to step forward as an alternative to Biden.

Another adviser said they had “taken no less than half a dozen key donors texting ‘disaster’ and [the] party needs to do something,” but acknowledged that “not much is possible unless” Biden steps aside.

They were among more than a dozen Democrats who spoke with POLITICO, most of whom were granted anonymity to speak freely.

One major Democratic donor and Biden supporter said it was time for the president to end his campaign. This person described Biden’s night as “the worst performance in history” and said Biden was so “bad that no one will pay attention to Trump’s lies.”

“Biden needs to drop out. No question about it,” the donor said in a text message, proposing an alternate ticket led by the governors of Maryland and Michigan.

At least two prominent potential 2028 contenders — Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and California Gov. Gavin Newsom — said they stood by Biden even after his performance.

Newsom, when pressed on MSNBC if Biden should step down, said that talk is “unhelpful” and “unnecessary.”

“You don’t turn your back because of one performance,” Newsom said. “What kind of party does that?”

Biden struggled throughout much of the debate, the first 2024 general election matchup between the president and former President Donald Trump. The 81-year-old president has long faced questions about his fitness for office, and the debate — the earliest general election matchup of its kind in modern political history — had been a gambit by the Biden campaign to reset the narrative around the race.

For weeks, Democrats had hoped a strong performance by Biden in the debate could ease concerns about his age. Instead, it did the opposite.

“No Labels and Dean Phillips won this debate,” said a former senior Biden White House official, referring to the outsider efforts to push a different candidate, not named Trump or Biden, into the race.

The pleas from within the party, while unlikely to actually result in a change atop the ticket, reflect a major turn in the campaign. Incumbent presidents have traditionally underperformed during their first debates — inundated by the demands of the job and often unable to dedicate serious time to preparation. But Thursday’s debate was unique in that it affirmed an existing preconception of Biden among many voters as a candidate past his sell-by date.

One adviser to major Democratic Party donors said they were texting from a meeting of donors in Atlanta on Thursday night, some writing “wtf.”

“Our only hope is that he bows out, we have a brokered convention, or dies,” the donor adviser said. “Otherwise we are fucking dead.”

Nonetheless, the likelihood of a brokered convention or Biden stepping aside are unlikely, a reality that even those who privately complained about Biden’s performance acknowledged.

“Only one guy can decide, and it’s him,” said one Democratic strategist.

The Biden campaign pushed back on the critique of the president, with an adviser calling him "the only person who has ever beaten Donald Trump."

"He will do it again," the adviser said. "Donald Trump did not give voters any reason to vote for him tonight. On the issues, the American people are with Joe Biden.”

Asked if Biden would be dropping out, one campaign aide said "of course not." The aide said the hour just after the debate — from 11 p.m. to midnight — was the campaign's strongest hour of grassroots fundraising since it launched.

In a statement, Biden’s campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said Biden “presented a positive and winning vision for the future of America,” while Trump “offered a dark and backwards window into what America will look like if he steps foot back in the White House.”

Stephanie Cutter, a Democratic consultant, said, "President Biden is the Democratic nominee and that’s not changing because of one debate performance."

She said, "We need to calm down and stay focused because Donald Trump certainly didn’t gain any voters tonight."

But for many Democrats on Thursday night, the view was far dimmer. One down-ballot statewide Democrat running for election said: “I mean, it’s not great all around. Our president has a speech impediment, a cold, and is 81.”

“No one expected a master class in debating from Joe Biden, but no one expected this nose dive,” said a senior adviser to top Democratic officials. “He was bad on message, bad on substance, bad on counter punching, bad on presentation, bad on non-verbals. There was no bright spot in this debate for him. The only bright spot is that this happened in June and not October.”