Some donors to President Joe Biden in the San Francisco Bay Area are urging Democrats to stick with him, telling them to make the message to voters about electing “a team, not just one guy.”
Pressure is mounting on Biden to quit the 2024 race — if not the presidency itself — after Thursday night’s disastrous debate performance, during which President Donald Trump showed a command of the issues while the incumbent showed his age and lack of mental clarity.
However, the Biden campaign is insisting that nothing has changed in the race. And as the San Francisco Chronicle notes, some donors are urging Democrat “bed wetters” merely to change the message to focus on Biden’s “team”:
“Over the next month, there’s going to be a push to ask him at the convention to throw it open to a new pick,” said Joe Cotchett, a prominent Burlingame attorney and Democratic fundraiser Biden jokingly said he has known “for 217 years” at an Atherton fundraiser last year. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think people are going to rally.”
He expects Biden supporters to start talking about electing “a team, not just one guy.” As in Biden’s team versus Trump, the candidate who said when accepting the 2016 Republican nomination that “I alone can fix it.”
In contrast, Cotchett said, electing a Biden team “is going be the emphasis, and that’s what we have to explain to the American public.”
Faith in the Biden “team” faltered after the botched withdrawal from Afghanistan in the late summer of 2021. Nevertheless, that message is likely to appeal to the party insiders for whom the Biden presidency has been a boon.
