48 frantic hours for Biden campaign to ‘fix’ disastrous Atlanta debate

The last hours have been absolutely frantic for the Biden campaign.

After the debate in Atlanta, Georgia, the president’s team had to countless calls with allies and organizing a wave of damage control campaign events generated by Biden’s poor performance against Donald Trump.

According to the New York Times, the first 48 hours have been particularly difficult for the Biden campaign, whose officials began work early Friday morning, just hours after the debate, amid intense criticism of Biden from progressive media.

“In the early hours of Friday morning, shortly after President Biden left the stage after a disastrous debate, his campaign chairwoman, Jen O’Malley Dillon, acknowledged in a series of private calls with prominent supporters that the night had gone badly but urged them not to overreact,” they can read in the pages of the New York Times.

Later that day, top White House aides called Biden and leader, Jeff Zientshad a call with the leader of the Democrats in the Senate Chuck Schumerwho briefed him on the temperature and concerns of Democratic lawmakers about Biden’s candidacy.

In the afternoon, the Biden campaign swapped its weekly all-staff call for a virtual chat to organize a damage control strategy and “dispel” no doubt in campaign offices in Wilmington, Delaware and beyond, explained the New York Times.

The media outlet explained that campaign officials had to “pressure and plead with concerned Democratic lawmakers, their representatives, their activists and their donors to support the president.”

In the middle of the calls, The campaign held a total of seven events in four different statesOne of them, in South Carolina, went particularly viral and made national headlines. with Biden acknowledging his poor performance in the debatesbut trying to put Trump in the spotlight. He explained that he was always able to tell “the truth” and distinguish “right from wrong.”

Now Biden, exhausted from the marathon day, took a break with a family reunion at Camp DavidThe president arrived Saturday evening and will be accompanied by first lady Jill Biden, as well as Biden’s children and grandchildren. It is likely during this mini-retirement that the final decision will be made on whether Biden will pursue or decline his candidacy on the advice of his family, which is often essential in the major decisions of his political career.

With all the uncertainty surrounding Biden and his career, for now the president has won public support from leading Democratic voices, such as former presidents. Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Additionally, one of the most cited surrogates, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, spoke out in support of Biden on TV channels, calling for the nomination to be withdrawn.

Likewise, so far, no Democratic lawmaker has publicly broken with Biden. On the contrary, some even supported him by criticizing the national media which pushed for the decline of the candidacy.

Regardless, the NYT clarified that the Biden campaign’s massive efforts to try to rig the debate demonstrate “the extent of the damage Mr. Biden did to his re-election campaign in just 90 minutes.”

“His campaign has been criticized as insular and pushy, so the explosion of activity signaled that the fallout from the debate had turned into a full-blown crisis that has thrown those in his orbit into a frantic combat mode,” the New York Times said.

The New York Daily reported that some Democrats were “quietly” debating ways to run other candidates, but senior Biden officials have said and tried to convince almost everyone that there is no viable alternative and that Democrats should focus on the “threat” posed by Trump.

According to the New York Times, the top advisers were Jeff Zients, Bruce Reed, Anita Dunn and Steve Ricchetiwho must have called a significant list of congressional leaders, major donors and activists. These advisers promised that Biden would prove he can show enough strength during the remainder of the campaign.

While the NYT, whose editorial board called for Biden’s resignation, considered that the darkest hours of the campaign were over, the president and his team have not yet suffered the biggest blow: the impact of major national polls after the debate.

The campaign’s feeling is that there is nothing more they can do to prevent Biden’s performance from having a direct impact on the polls, thereby giving Donald Trump more momentum.