Congressional Democrats increasingly keep distance from Biden amid aftermath of disastrous debate

The spiraling political crisis sparked by President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance in late June doesn’t just affect Joe Biden.

Democrats throughout the party, from Capitol Hill to state operatives, are increasingly concerned about Biden’s presence on a ticket. Biden, running against former President Donald Trump, his vanquished 2020 rival and now the 2024 Republican nominee-in-waiting, could prove a drag on down-ballot candidates. That as voters grow increasingly skeptical that the incumbent can handle four more years in office.

The stakes couldn’t be higher for congressional Democrats. The party’s 51-49 edge in the Senate was already in peril before Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate performance, and Democrats need to gain four seats to claim a House majority.

Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA), who has been agnostic about Biden continuing as the nominee, said “concern has been pretty widespread” among Democrats. Peters added in an interview, “We want to win the election, and my whole point has been weren’t doing well in swing states before the debate and now it is worse, and that is where the election is going to be won and lost.”

Although congressional Democrats were running far ahead of Biden in polls for now, Peters said he is concerned that that trend wouldn’t hold.

“The concern is the numbers,” Peters said. “If the numbers are low, it’s hard to keep that spread. And, if numbers get lower, so does the waterline.”

His concerns were shared by a colleague, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), who put out a clinical statement on July 10 that read more like electoral analysis than political rhetoric.

“In determining how to proceed as a party, there must be a serious reckoning with the down-ballot effect of whomever we nominate,” Torres said. “What matters is not how we feel but what the numbers tell us. An unsentimental analysis of the cold hard numbers — which have no personal feelings or political loyalties — should inform what we decide and whom we nominate.”

A bipartisan poll conducted by AARP in the crucial state of Wisconsin, a must-win for Biden in November, shows him not only trailing Trump by 5 percentage points but running 10 points behind incumbent Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI). However, it is increasingly rare for voters to split their ballots. In the past two presidential elections, the only senator to win an election in a state won by a candidate of the opposite party was Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in 2020.

With Biden struggling in statewide polls, Democratic hopes to retain the Senate and block Trump judicial nominees would require voters in several key swing states to split their tickets in November. Further, private polls are showing ominous news for Democrats as elected officials and operatives gossip about distressing numbers in swing states and swing districts across the country.

These concerns came as Democratic donors were already shifting resources to prevent a Republican landslide in November, in which Trump would not only win the White House but the GOP would control both chambers of Congress as well.

“People are doing what they need to do to ensure victory in November and looking at state races, to engage voters at the local level and not waiting for the Beltway crowd,” one donor said. “Instead, they are doing what they need to so that November is not a tsunami.”

One Democratic pollster worried that, in the aftermath of the debate, “Biden’s floor gets lower than we would have thought. There are some Democrats, not for ideological partisan reasons, who lose faith in Biden and vote for someone instead.” The pollster added that those people wouldn’t become Trump voters, but they might vote for a third-party candidate or stay home.

This becomes particularly meaningful because of how polarized politics has become and how few swing voters there are. As Pete D’Alessandro, a veteran Iowa progressive consultant, pointed out while the polls “only moved 2 or 3 points” after the debate, “3 points moving is a pretty big move.”

He also noted how much it served as an obstacle for down-ballot candidates just for taking up oxygen. “if they are talking about this, there is less chance for all of these candidates to talk about what they are going to do when they are elected.” After all, he pointed out that every paragraph in a news story about Biden’s age is one less to discuss Medicare or Social Security.

Swing district Democrats had taken steps in the immediate aftermath of Biden’s debate performance to separate themselves from the former president. Both Reps. Jared Golden (D-ME) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), who represent districts that Trump won in 2020, acknowledged their belief that Biden would lose in November. However, those ranks expanded on July 10 when Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), another swing district Democrat, called on Biden to step aside. Ryan, who was the only Empire State Democrat to win a competitive House race in 2022, is likely to be joined by other Democrats in tough campaigns over the coming days.

The message among Biden’s allies on Capitol Hill was increasingly one focused on the negative case against Trump. In particular, they cited the danger of a second Trump term in office and the Project 2025 agenda put together by top Trump allies as a blueprint for a second term. At times, it seemed reminiscent of Biden’s infamous 2007 Democratic presidential debate jibe at former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, “There’s only three things he needs to make a sentence: a noun, a verb, and 9-11,” as Democrats’ defense of the embattled incumbent often seemed simply to be a noun, a verb and Project 2025.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

As Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), a vociferous defender of Biden, told reporters Tuesday, “We understand that the threat isn’t our president, the threat is our former president. We understand the policies they are trying to usher in whether through Project 2025 or the MAGA cult itself. Everything is anti-DEI, anti-women’s rights, reproductive rights, everything is anti-people of color. We understand the stakes, and we understand that it is important to stay the course.”

But the question is how much negative partisanship can hold the dam back if Biden stays on the ballot. The polls are only getting worse and the prospect of white-knuckling through four months of campaign appearances by the incumbent is not a recipe for down-ballot success in November.