The panic inside the Democratic Party is growing.
Democratic National Committee members lashed out at the campaign for gaslighting them about President Biden’s health, while the campaign team accused nervous Democrats of “bedwetting” over the debate catastrophe even as another major newspaper called for President Biden to quit his reelection bid.
Biden allies rushed over the weekend to ease concerns about the 81-year-old president’s faltering campaign by showing unwavering public support, even as many grumbled that the campaign wasn’t taking seriously enough the fallout from his abysmal debate performance.
Mr. Biden stayed out of sight at Camp David as his surrogates flocked to the Sunday talk shows.
The Associated Press reported Sunday evening that his family used the Sunday gathering at Camp David to advise that he continue to campaign. Some of those family members said his staff had not prepared him well for Thursday’s debate.
The wire service cited “four people familiar with the discussions.”
SEE ALSO: Tough choices: Ousting Biden is a long shot but keeping him terrifies the party
An earlier report that Mr. Biden and his family spent the day discussing the future of his campaign had been immediately dismissed by White House officials as “not accurate.”
But the first major post-debate poll released late Sunday spelled trouble for Mr. Biden and Democrats.
A CBS News/YouGov poll revealed that 72% of voters — including 41% of Democrats — say Mr. Biden doesn’t have the mental and cognitive abilities to serve as president. That’s up from 65% of registered voters and 29% of Democrats who voiced concerns about the president’s mental acuity in the same poll two weeks ago.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez held a Saturday afternoon call to reassure some of the party’s most influential members that Mr. Biden was here to stay and up to the task of running for a second term.
Some on the call were frustrated that the pair did not take questions and offered a rosy assessment of Mr. Biden’s chances in November against former President Donald Trump, leaving them feeling like they were being “gaslit.”
“There were a number of things that could have been said in addressing the situation. But we didn’t get that. We were being gaslit,” Colorado DNC member Joe Salazar told The Associated Press.
SEE ALSO: First major post-debate poll spells trouble for Biden, Democrats
Other members on the call also described the call as “feeling gaslit.” The term refers to being manipulated or misled into not believing what one plainly sees or feels.
The Biden campaign also pushed back Sunday, sending a fundraising email accusing some in the party of “bedwetting.”
Deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty insisted in the note that Mr. Biden will be the Democrats’ nominee and urged the party to support him.
“The bedwetting brigade is calling for Joe Biden to ‘drop out.’ That is the best possible way for Donald Trump to win and us to lose,” Mr. Flaherty wrote in the email.
“Joe Biden is going to be the Democratic nominee, period. End of story,” the email said. “And if he were to drop out, it would lead to weeks of chaos, internal food fighting and a bunch of candidates limp into a brutal floor fight at the convention,” Mr. Flaherty wrote.
Mr. Flaherty cited a post-debate poll of hypothetical matchups against Mr. Trump showing that Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris still poll better than Democratic alternatives.
The poll from Data for Progress, a left-wing advocacy group, showed that Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris each would get a 45% share of the vote against Mr. Trump, who got 48% in each matchup.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Cory A. Booker of New Jersey, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer all would get 44%, while Sen. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro polled at 43% against Mr. Trump.
All the surveyed Democrats lost to Mr. Trump by 2 or 3 percentage points, essentially a statistical wash.
“And at the end of the day, we’d switch to candidates who would, according to the polls, be less likely to win than Joe Biden — the only person ever to defeat Donald Trump,” Mr. Flaherty wrote.
However, election statistician Nate Silver immediately pushed back on Mr. Flaherty’s email in a post on X, noting that such a small edge over less-known people is actually a bad sign.
“Literally all of the Democrats in this poll are actually doing [as well as] Biden despite being much less well-known, which generally tends to depress your polling,” Mr. Silver posted. “That this is the best talking point they can come up with indicates how poor their argument is.”
In a separate campaign email sent to donors on Sunday, officials boasted that Mr. Biden has raised more than $33 million since the debate, including $26 million from grassroots donors.
Campaign officials try to reassure donors and supporters that Mr. Biden had “just a bad night” and should be judged on his record in office, not the 90-minute debate.
Mr. Biden himself spent Saturday trying to smooth over his meandering, slack-jawed debate performance with wealthy donors at a posh New Jersey fundraiser, insisting his abysmal performance won over independent voters.
“Research during the debate shows us converting more undecided voters than Trump did, in large part because of his conduct on Jan. 6,” he told the crowd. “People remember the bad things during his presidency.”
The event was held at the private home of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, and raised $3.7 million, according to the Biden campaign.
Mr. Biden insisted that his polling numbers among Democrats moved up during the debate. However, several polls released over the past two days, including a CNN flash poll immediately after the debate, show Mr. Biden’s support dropping among voters.
The president admitted he had a bad showing at the debate, but remained undeterred.
“I didn’t have a great night, but I’m going to fight harder,” Mr. Biden told the crowd.
Still, calls for Mr. Biden to drop out are growing louder.
Former Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, a Democrat and Biden supporter, so far offered the harshest criticism of the president from within his own party. Over the weekend, he told an Iowa newspaper that the debate was “a disaster from which Biden cannot recover.”
Mr. Harkin, himself 84 years old, said all incumbent Democratic senators should write to Mr. Biden and ask him to release his delegates and step aside so the party can choose a new candidate.
On Sunday, a second major newspaper called on Mr. Biden to bow out of the race and allow a younger, more vigorous candidate to step up.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s editorial board, called Mr. Biden’s debate performance “excruciating.” The board said, “Retirement is now necessary.”
“The unfortunate truth is that Biden should withdraw from the race, for the good of the nation he has served so admirably for half a century,” the board wrote.
The left-leaning editorial board also said Mr. Biden failed to convey any vision for a second term and was unable to detail accomplishments from his nearly four years in office.
On Friday, The New York Times became the first major newspaper urging Mr. Biden to step down as his party’s nominee.
The Bidens were spending Sunday at Camp David to assess the future of his campaign, NBC News reported, citing Democratic sources.
However, a White House official pushed back on the story, telling reporters it “is not accurate.”
The official who spoke with reporters traveling with Mr. Biden said the trip already had been planned to take family photographs for the Democratic National Convention in August.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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