Dem
51
GOP
49
Joe Biden is desperate to save his candidacy amid the increasing calls for him to end it. One of the Democrats' great achievements in recent years has been to woo affluent, well-educated suburbanites from the Republican Party to become Democrats. These people are great voters to have because their turnout rate is high. In a desperate move, Biden is now ignoring them and appealing to Black voters and union members to save his candidacy. He has to hope the affluent, well-educated suburbanites forgive him and don't go back from whence they came.
On Monday, Biden forcefully rejected all calls for him to step down. He wrote a letter to Democratic members of Congress and told them by carrying on as they are, they are only weakening him and strengthening Trump, so cut it out right now. He pointed out that tens of millions of Democrats voted for him in the primaries and if the Democratic voters want him, he should rightly be the nominee. In the letter, he cited his legislative achievements as reasons he should be the nominee. Of course, that somewhat misses the point. The Democrats aren't suggesting he was too old and infirm 2 or 3 years ago. They are questioning whether he is up to the race right now, after his debate performance.
Various Democratic celebrities are openly calling for Biden to drop out. Big donors are also closing their wallets. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings said he was pi**ed off at the Founding Fathers. They wrote a minimum age for president into the Constitution, but not a maximum age. Damn them. He said that he has talked to many big donors and they are now going to skip the presidential race and pour money into critical House and Senate races. Biden is calling them "elites" now. They used to be his friends. He called into Morning Joe and sounded off against them. Watch:
Biden also said that if anyone doubts his abilities, that person should challenge him at the convention and let the delegates vote. Of course, since he picked nearly all the delegates, he would win that one. He is clearly very angry now, but he is angry at Democrats, not angry at Donald Trump.
How will this end? We don't know. Maybe Biden will do great at the NATO Summit and the naysayers will stop. Maybe he will make it worse. But the clock is ticking and it is terrible for the Democrats to keep this "Democrats in disarray" story going. The average voter is going to think: "Those guys don't have their act together." That is not where the Democrats want to be. (V)