Democrats Begin Their Shift From Anxiety to Action

The ground may be starting to shift under President Joe Biden after his scattered and sometimes disoriented debate performance last week.

Across the party, widespread agreement is emerging that Biden’s chances of beating Donald Trump have dramatically diminished. “No one I have talked to believes Biden is going to win this race anymore: nobody,” said one longtime Democratic pollster working in a key battleground state who, like almost all of the party insiders I interviewed for this article, asked for anonymity to discuss the situation candidly.

That reticence about going public was symptomatic. A general reluctance to publicly express those concerns, or to urge Biden to step aside, has been obvious—particularly because the White House has pushed back fiercely against critics, and many senior Democrats have issued supportive, if not ironclad, statements. And even some of those Democrats who considered Biden’s performance calamitous continue to believe that replacing him with Vice President Kamala Harris or another candidate would endanger the party’s chances more than staying the course.

“Universally we’re in this state of suspended animation,” the leader of a prominent Democratic advocacy group told me.

[Read: Biden’s delegates are flirting with a breakup]

But the first signs that this paralysis may be lifting are appearing. of Illinois suggested yesterday that Biden may need to consider leaving the race; Representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas also yesterday, as did , the party’s 2022 Senate candidate in Ohio, and Julián Castro, a rival for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination. A senior House Democrat told me that many colleagues who are running in competitive districts express similar views