Anxious donors plot next moves after Biden debate calamity
A silver lining of Joe Biden’s pernicious debate performance was, according to a succession of upbeat emails from the president’s re-election campaign, a record fundraising haul.
By Sunday night, only three days after he stumbled through 90 painful minutes in the company of presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, more than $33m had dropped into Biden campaign coffers. Debate day itself was “our best grassroots fundraising day ever”, officials announced.
Related: Democratic governors reportedly waiting in wings after dire Biden debate
But while the dollar amount is substantial, it portrays a mixed picture. Almost all of that money, $26m to be exact, came from so-called small-ticket donors, signaling support from his voter base. Many wealthy benefactors who will be crucial to the president’s chances of securing a second term in November are still undecided on backing him, or calling for him to stand down.
Biden’s national finance committee has moved quickly to shore up support, arranging a call with big donors for Monday evening, an indication of how seriously it considers the situation. Jen O’Malley Dillon, the campaign chair, will attempt to reassure them that Biden, who will be 82 at the start of a second term, is up to the mental and physical challenge.
Some potential donors are waiting for the mainstream media opinion polls before deciding whether to echo calls for Biden to step aside, Axios reported. A number of flash polls post-debate show a majority of voters want him out of the race.
Others, such as prominent New York investment analyst Whitney Tilson, who has a long record of financial support for Biden and the Democratic cause, said he fears the president could be “well on that path” to dementia, and needed to see proof that Biden was “not an old man in a moderate to advanced state of cognitive decline” before making a commitment.
“He needs to appear in unscripted settings and handle fair but tough questioning,” Tilson said in an open letter to a number of Democratic politicians, posted to his account on X, formerly Twitter.
He suggested weekly press conferences at the White House, and appearances on 60 Minutes and a late-night talk show.
“Unless he does so, I will be forced to conclude that there has been a concerted effort by him, his wife, and his closest advisors (and possibly the mainstream media) to deceive me and the American people about the rapid deterioration of his mental acuity,” Tilson wrote.
“I will fight to my dying breath to stop Trump and his toxic Trumpism, but if the man I saw at the debate is the real Joe Biden right now, it would be a waste of my time and money to support him because he has almost no chance of beating Trump. He will get my vote, and nothing more.”
The New York Times on Monday identified a number of other potential big donors, several of whom it said gathered on Saturday at a fundraiser in the Hamptons and came away with mixed opinions.
Michael Kempner, founder and chief executive of public relations company MikeWorldWide, and a prominent Biden acolyte, posted on Instagram: “I just saw President Biden. Relax everyone, he was on his game. Onward and forward.”
But Anthony Scaramucci, briefly a White House communications director for the Trump administration and an investment banker who has switched his support to Biden, said his first-hand observation left him unconvinced.
“I went to President Biden‘s fundraiser in East Hampton and I thought he did quite well reading the teleprompter today and meeting with people,” Scaramucci tweeted.
“However, that is not going to be enough to prove to the American people that he’s up for another four years.”
The event was hosted by hedge fund manager Barry Rosenstein, with Loews hotel chain chief executive Jonathan Tisch and radio host Howard Stern also in attendance, the Times reported.
Some donors, meanwhile, are turning their criticism on aides who advised Biden before the debate, messaging that also emerged from the president’s weekend meeting at Camp David with his family.
First lady Jill Biden, and the couple’s children and grandchildren, were adamant he should stay in the race, reports said, and critical of the way he was prepared to take on Trump.
John Morgan, a Florida lawyer and major Biden fundraiser, said the president was “over-coached [and] over-practiced”, and pointed the finger at his senior adviser Anita Dunn, while using a derogatory name for her.
“Biden looked tan in North Carolina the next day but like a corpse the night before,” Morgan said in a tweet, referring to his far more confident appearance at a campaign event in Raleigh on Friday.
“Did Anita Dunce ever have him stand in front of the camera before the debate to see what he looked like? Did he have make-up, which everyone needs for TV?”
In private, however, many Democrats concede Biden’s performance was potentially hugely damaging to the party’s prospects in November, and are reportedly discussing a possible strategy shift for donors if Biden stays in the race, which he is looking increasingly likely to do.
Some are keen to focus more on House races that could secure a Democratic majority that would try to check a second Trump administration.
“The way I’m talking to my donors is: ‘The House is the last firewall, folks. We have to flip the House,’” one Democratic congressmember told Politico.
“Ninety-nine percent of the people I talked to can’t get their credit card out fast enough.”
