Democrats are banking on President Joe Biden delivering a strong debate performance next month following an expectations-defying State of the Union that eased concerns about him leading the 2024 ticket.
Republicans have seized on the 81-year-old Biden’s gaffes and forgetfulness to make the case he is mentally unfit for a second term. Those concerns were seemingly validated when, weeks before the March State of the Union, special counsel Robert Hur judged the president would come across as a “well-meaning, elderly man” in his classified documents case.
Biden delivered an energetic, stump-style speech that helped tamp down a brewing Democratic panic. But the Biden campaign continues to be dogged by months of polling showing him behind in his presidential rematch with Donald Trump.
Biden is taking a gamble with his decision to debate the former president twice before the November election. The first debate, set for June 27, could reinforce the same narrative about his age if he does not meet the low expectations of lucidity set for him.
However, Democrats were encouraged by his State of the Union and are counting on him to deliver a similar performance at the first debate.
“He gave a great State of the Union. He knocked it out of the park. And I think that’s the hope with the Democrats, and our belief is that he’s going to rise to the occasion in this June debate,” said Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), a progressive surrogate for the Biden campaign.
Political spectators question whether a debate this early will have a lasting impact on the presidential race. In 2020, Biden and Trump did not appear onstage with one another until September.
But for the Democrats, it represents what could be the beginning of a reset. Biden is trailing Trump in nearly every battleground state. In Nevada, the polling gap is as large as 13 points.
Those numbers are, at least publicly, regarded with a degree of skepticism. Democrats predict the election will be exceptionally close, just as it was in 2016 and 2020.
But the Biden campaign has sought to put to rest concerns from party insiders that he could lose in November. At least one Democratic operative in close contact with the White House described the mood as an unmitigated “freakout,” according to Politico.
The State of the Union largely surprised Washington lawmakers. Biden not only avoided major stumbles, but he also landed shots at Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a boogeyman for Democrats, and other Republicans jeering him from the audience.
More importantly, it helped the White House move past the Hur report. Biden would not face prosecution, but interview transcripts released to the public showed him forgetting details including the years he served as vice president and when his son Beau died.
The State of the Union, given once a year before a joint session of Congress, is normally highly scripted affair in which the president lays out his priorities for the remainder of his term. But Biden used the event as a de facto campaign rally, mentioning his “predecessor” more than a dozen times across his 67-minute speech.
Biden runs the risk of fumbling in a more volatile debate setting. However, Biden emerged largely unscathed from his two debates with Trump in 2020, despite Trump’s attempts to goad and rattle him.
Democrats say the State of the Union provides fresh evidence he will do well.
“Strong. Focused. Knew the issues,” Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the former House majority leader, said of Biden’s speech. “I think that’s what he’s going to be at the debate. I think that’s why they’re having a debate this early.”
The June debate has been structured in such a way as to minimize risk to Biden. Trump agreed to the president’s request that it be held in a studio, without a live audience, while it is being hosted by CNN, seen as a friendly outlet to Biden.
Biden will have another chance to dispel concerns with his speech at the Democratic National Convention in August, while he agreed to hold a second debate with Trump, this one hosted by ABC, on Sept. 10.
“He’s got three big opportunities. And I think he’s gonna move the needle there,” said Khanna.
But the June debate, in particular, will be held early enough that if Biden performs poorly, it will have largely receded into the background by Election Day.
Democrats have bristled at the continued attempts to paint Biden as in cognitive decline, noting Trump is only a few years younger. Voters routinely cite Biden’s age as a worry in public polling, but the GOP has also attempted to magnify, and at times distort, his verbal slip-ups.
On Thursday, the party’s research arm posted a clip on X of Biden, who has largely overcome a childhood stutter, appearing to call his vice president “President Kamala Harris.”
The debate poses the risk that Biden will give Republicans fresh ammunition. Yet Democrats also acknowledge the GOP portrayal gives Biden a chance to exceed expectations in high-profile moments.
“His speech at the State of the Union was good under any circumstances, but they, frankly, made it even better by the way they had been talking him down before it,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), who debated Mike Pence as Hillary Clinton’s vice presidential nominee in 2016.
“And I have no reason to think that the debate won’t be similar,” Kaine added. “I wouldn’t do too much trash-talking in advance.”
Republicans acknowledge there is a danger in setting expectations low for Biden. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), who is on Trump’s vice presidential short list, considers Biden’s State of the Union performance a “cautionary tale” for Republicans.
“I mean, look, sometimes Biden has good days and sometimes he has bad days. And you don’t want to get in a situation where he has a good day and blows away expectations,” he said.
“I think it’s easy for anybody to be on for an hour and a half,” he added.
Trump has seemingly attempted to reset expectations for the debates, claiming if Biden does well, it is because he is on performance-enhancing drugs.
“He’s going to be so jacked up for those, you watch,” Trump alleged earlier this month in remarks before the National Rifle Association. He has previously said without evidence that Biden was “high as a kite” during his State of the Union.
Some Hill lawmakers expressed a heavy dose of skepticism that these and other milestones in the presidential race will do much to change the dynamic.
Rep. Dan Kildee (D-MI), a retiring congressman from the swing state of Michigan, predicted the independent voters who will decide the election are not going to be the ones plugged into the debate performances.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), who debated Trump in the 2016 presidential primary, said voters’ perception of Biden are already set and won’t be changed by a single debate performance.
Indeed, a snap poll taken after the second presidential debate in 2020 found that viewers did not walk away with a materially different assessment of Trump or Biden. The president did not see a polling bump in the days after his State of the Union, either.
“It could reinforce what people have already seen,” Rubio said of Biden. “But I don’t think he’s gonna go in there and light the world on fire and change everybody’s mind about what they have seen from him over the last three and a half years.”
“These aren’t two people running for sheriff,” he added. “They’re pretty well known.”
A debate does not only pose risks for Biden. In 2020, Trump was perceived as having been too combative in their first debate, while Democrats are banking on him treating the debate stage like a campaign rally.
“He goes into weird tangents that are kind of really hard to understand what’s going on,” said Kaine. “Will he do that in a debate? We’ll see.”
Nonetheless, the debates are widely regarded as a bigger liability for Biden. Republicans generally believe the president would not have accepted them if he were not behind in the polls. Meanwhile, the Trump campaign has attempted to cast Biden as afraid to appear onstage by demanding additional debates beyond the two.
Kildee suggested the debate is a chance for Biden to overcome what he sees as a gap between public perception and his own experience with the president.
“I mean, I know him. I’ve talk to him for hours on end,” Kildee said. “If he could just present that Joe Biden, I don’t have any problem at all.”
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Khanna, the Biden surrogate, tacitly acknowledged the president is behind by giving a positive spin to his underdog status. He pointed to Biden’s performance in vice presidential debates as Barack Obama’s running mate, plus his two debates against Trump.
“Somehow, he always is underestimated. And I think in many ways, he’s like Harry Truman,” Khanna said of Biden, referring to the 33rd president’s upset victory in 1948. “As president, he is underestimated — he’s going to be coming from behind in the polls, but he’ll win.”
