Six Days Shook Biden’s Candidacy. Can He Turn It Around?

Good evening. Things are moving fast right now. Tonight, I’ll start by telling you the very latest, and then I’ll explain how six days turned politics upside down. We’re also looking at how Biden is fighting for his candidacy on the air.

By Jess Bidgood

The latest developments

• President Biden has told key allies he may not be able to salvage his candidacy if he cannot convince voters that he is up to the job in the next few days, after a disastrous debate performance last week.

• He told his campaign staff today that he is “in this race until the end.”

• A new poll from The New York Times and Siena College found that Trump has gained three points since the debate and now leads Biden by six points overall.

• The Biden campaign scrambled to calm concerns from his party as the president prepared to meet with Democratic governors tonight.

How one week changed it all

I told you this election wasn’t going to be boring. But I didn’t think it would take less than a week for American politics to turn wholly upside down.

In just six days, President Biden’s bid for re-election plunged into crisis, so buffeted by doubt about his fitness to face former President Donald Trump in November that, according to a key ally, even the president himself is considering whether or not he can recover. The Supreme Court vastly expanded presidential power, heightening the stakes of the election in the most uncertain moment of the campaign. And all eyes are now on a series of tests that Biden has set for himself as Democrats agonize over the best way forward.

With four months to go until the election, Biden isn’t running against Trump right now. He’s running against — and trying desperately to change — the public’s impression of himself.

Since the debate on June 27, Biden has suffered from a series of self-inflicted wounds — the worst of which was a perceived denial over how much had gone wrong — that have brought long-simmering worries about his campaign to the fore. Understanding those can help us understand his efforts to recover — and where he might go from here. Let’s look back at six extraordinary days.

Day 1: A bad debate was only the beginning

By now, we know what happened when Biden stepped onstage for a debate that had been proposed by his team. While Trump used the opportunity to spew falsehoods about his record and about Jan. 6, Biden’s halting performance left many Democrats in shock.

At a watch party after the debate, Biden claimed he had done well, while Jill Biden, the first lady, showered him with praise. “You answered every question, you knew all the facts,” she said — words that would come to symbolize the denial perceived to surround the president.