Joe Biden and top allies have sought to reassure Democratic donors that he can defeat Donald Trump, after a disastrous debate performance left wealthy backers divided over whether the US president should abandon his re-election bid.
Biden conceded that he “didn’t have a great night” as he met donors at a fundraiser in East Hampton, New York, on Saturday, where the cost of entry ranged from $3,300 to $250,000 per person, according to the invitation.
“I understand the concern about the debate. I get it,” Biden told supporters in the wealthy resort town.
But the president argued that “voters had a different reaction,” adding: “Since the debate, the polls show a little movement, moved us up actually.”
Few polls have been released since Thursday night’s debate, but betting markets moved dramatically against Biden during and after the showdown. A Morning Consult poll conducted on Friday found roughly half of Democratic voters said Biden should step aside in favour of another candidate.
Three donors familiar with the East Hampton fundraiser described the mood in the room as subdued, despite the president appearing stronger than he did on the debate stage on Thursday night.
Biden was expected to attend another fundraiser later on Saturday in Red Bank, New Jersey, hosted by the state’s Democratic governor, Phil Murphy.
Senior Democratic lawmakers and party grandees have also reached out to donors in recent days. Chuck Schumer, the most senior Democrat on Capitol Hill, has tried to reassure several backers about Biden’s candidacy since the debate, said two party fundraisers.
There have been mounting calls for the president to step aside and allow another Democrat to be the party’s nominee for the White House ahead of November’s election.
At 81 years old, Biden has faced questions for months about his age and fitness for office. But any concerns that Democratic insiders had privately about the incumbent president spilled out into the open on Thursday night, after nearly 50mn Americans watched Biden struggle through a live, televised debate against Trump. The president rambled, appeared to lose his train of thought and struggled to complete sentences.
Biden has insisted that he will stay in the race, and campaign officials say he will participate in a second presidential debate planned for September.
The campaign has touted what it says has been a record influx of grassroots, or small-dollar, donations, since Thursday. A campaign official said on Saturday morning that the campaign had raised more than $27mn between the debate and Friday evening.
“It wasn’t his greatest debate. But it is 90 minutes . . . in a campaign and in an administration, where he has achieved enormous things,” Anita Dunn, a longtime senior adviser to Biden, said on MSNBC on Saturday. “Maybe it wasn’t a great debate. But he has been a great president.”
Asked if Biden’s inner circle had discussed him dropping out after the debate, Dunn replied: “No, the conversation we had is, ‘OK, what do we do next?”
Jen O’Malley Dillon, chair of the Biden campaign, accused the “beltway class” of “counting Joe Biden out”.
“If we do see changes in polling in the coming weeks, it will not be the first time that overblown media narratives have driven temporary dips in the polls,” O’Malley Dillon said.
But the White House assurances have done little to quell public unease. Late Friday, the influential New York Times editorial board published a leader urging Biden to step aside.
On Saturday in East Hampton, reporters travelling with the president saw a group of onlookers holding signs that read: “Please drop out for US,” and “Step down for democracy,” and: “We love you but it’s time.”
The debate fallout has divided Democratic donors, whose support is critical to fund a campaign that is set to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in an effort to secure another four years in the White House. Biden’s long fundraising advantage over Trump has eroded in recent months. Trump outraised Biden in both April and May amid a swell of support following his conviction on 34 criminal charges in New York last month.
While some donors have redoubled their efforts to rally people around Biden, others are more skittish. One Democratic fundraiser noted some Wall Street megadonors intend to keep bankrolling the Biden campaign while trying to convince him to make way for another candidate. Another camp intends to withhold their donations altogether.
Still, several high-profile Democratic donors have come to Biden’s full-throated defence.
LinkedIn founder and billionaire Democratic donor Reid Hoffman sought to calm fellow deep-pocketed Biden supporters in a letter on Friday in which he acknowledged that the president had a “very bad debate performance”. But he added that it would be a ‘bad idea” to launch a public campaign to get him to step aside.
“This election is very close, and I don’t know who will win,” Hoffman wrote. “But as a political philanthropist, with 129 days until the election, I am doubling down on my bet that America will choose Biden’s decency, care, and proven success over Trump’s violence, lies, and chaos.”
Trump narrowly leads Biden in national opinion polls, according to the latest FiveThirtyEight average, as well as in most of the key swing states that will decide the outcome of November’s election.
One Democratic fundraiser said donors would be looking at polling in the coming days to plot their next move.
Several are already contemplating who they would throw their weight behind if Biden were to step aside, with Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer among the most popular names being floated. Three donors and bundlers also said Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries was gaining interest from Wall Street elites.
“The results of those polls will help donors decide what to do next . . . if the result is negative there will be consequences,” the fundraiser said.
But the Biden campaign showed little outward signs of concern about the polls at the weekend.
Geoff Garin, president of Hart Research and a pollster for the Biden campaign, said in a post on X Saturday evening that two surveys he had conducted in battleground states following the debate showed it had “no effect on the vote choice”.
“The election was extremely close and competitive before the debate, and it is still extremely close and competitive today,” Garin said.
Additional reporting by Alex Rogers in Washington