By CALDER MCHUGH | POLITICO
OUT OF THE WOODWORK — After a debate performance that had prominent Democrats calling him “toast” and advocating for an open convention, President Joe Biden showed no signs of wavering at a North Carolina rally today.
“I don’t debate as well as I used to,” he admitted to a crowd of cheering supporters. “[But] I know like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up.”
Any discussion of replacing Biden with another Democrat begins and ends with the president’s own inclinations — the only plausible way to remove him from the ticket is if he steps aside and releases the delegates pledged to him at August’s Democratic National Convention (or has a health issue that leaves him physically unable to continue). There’s no indication as of yet that it’s a real consideration for Biden’s camp. No Democratic members of Congress have attached their names to a direct call for Biden to drop out, though some have begun to equivocate, calling it “the president’s decision” or “strike one.”
Still, with the fallout from his performance continuing to ripple, the natural posture for Democrats — and in particular the Biden campaign itself — is to project confidence in public, even if hard conversations are happening behind the scenes. But if Biden does decide to reverse course and bow out of the race, it would create a scramble unlike anything in modern American politics.