Biden has weathered personal tragedy and political hardship over his long career, using that tenacity to fuel his ambitions. But now, as he faces the biggest fight of his political life, his unstoppable pursuit of a comeback risks looking like blind defiance against a rising tide.
“I’ve been wrong on everything so far,” Biden told reporters on Friday when asked why he still believed he was the best person to defeat former President Donald J. Trump after his disastrous performance in the Atlanta debate put his race in crisis.
“You were wrong in 2020. You were wrong in 2022. We were nearly destroyed. Remember the Red Wave,” Biden said, referring to the wave of Republican victories that failed to materialize in the midterm elections. Instead, Democrats fared much better than expected, which was a defining factor in Biden’s decision to seek a second term.
He carried that spirit into a 22-minute ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos on Friday, in which he was asked about his own approval rating of 36 percent.
“Well, I don’t think that’s my approval rating,” Biden said. “The polls don’t show that.”
The president is scheduled to appear at several campaign events in Pennsylvania on Sunday with the first lady to rally supporters.
The comeback myth that Mr. Biden has built over more than a half-century in politics is colliding with a new reality. Rather than a warrior overcoming obstacles, critics accuse him of putting his ego before country. With his dismissal of polls and voter concerns and growing calls among Democrats for him to drop out of the race, some in his party are unsure how aggressively to persuade him to change course as time runs out to make changes.
For Biden, “knocked down, I get up” isn’t just a campaign ad. It’s key to understanding how he sees himself. He sees himself as a gritty, everyday politician who has always been overlooked, underestimated and discarded. To him, his opponents are as essential to his story as his supporters.
And some Biden supporters say they still believe in him, including California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who visited the Biden campaign offices in Pittsburgh on Friday to boost volunteers in the key state. But even Newsom, who has been a vocal supporter of Biden from the moment the debate ended 10 days ago, was clear about the stakes: “This week and this weekend is really important. None of us are taking a position lightly about the turnaround after the debate.”
Before the debate, campaign officials said Biden’s poll numbers were unlikely to plummet regardless of how well he performed.
“This was always expected to be a close race,” campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said, “and the dynamics that are unfolding now are ones we expected for a long time. Voters are deeply concerned about Donald Trump and his harmful policies, and the more we engage and reach out to them, the more they will support President Biden.”
Biden participated in a conference call with senior campaign surrogates on Saturday, during which they spent an hour and 15 minutes soliciting feedback on the past few days. Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, a longtime Biden ally, said everyone on the call encouraged Biden to keep going, but that supporters had various concerns about whether Biden could serve another four years in office.
“He asked us to share, ‘Who have you heard from, who is critical, who has concerns or who’s not convinced?'” Coons said. Biden told the group he understood the concerns and was open to doing more interviews and unscripted appearances going forward.
Kate Bedingfield, who served as White House communications director until 2023, said Biden still had to prove himself.
“I think this is a very competitive race, but I also think there’s no question he’s got a lot of work to do,” Bedingfield said. “Now is the time he needs to show people he’s fully committed, and I know the reason he’s doing it is to protect our democracy, to defeat Donald Trump and to counter the threat that he poses to our country.”
The ABC interview was meant to be one of Biden’s chances to do so. “He didn’t succeed,” veteran Obama administration strategist David Axelrod wrote in an opinion essay Saturday. Those close to Biden felt he had done enough to keep fighting an establishment that was showing signs of turning against him.
Biden gathered with his family on Saturday at his home in Wilmington, Delaware, and attended church with his sister, Valerie Biden Owens. The family has frequently urged Biden to keep fighting. Last week, the Bidens gathered at Camp David, where their message was the same: “Stay.” The family is still urging Biden to keep fighting, people with knowledge of their thinking said.
First lady Jill Biden has been traveling around the country campaigning in recent days, and Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, has been encouraging his father to continue in the campaign.
Six people familiar with the Biden family situation said Biden may be seeking advice from allies and making calls to Democrats in Congress to try to prevent the dam from breaking against him, but his decisions in the coming days and weeks will be heavily influenced by his family, they said.
Democrats have expressed concern in recent days about how Biden’s family can sway so much over his political future, but people who know the family say that’s always been the case.
In his memoir, “Promises to Keep,” Biden wrote that when he was considering dropping out of the presidential primary following his 1987 plagiarism scandal, his two sons, Beau and Hunter, found him in the hallway of his home. They pleaded with him to continue. They feared how much he would change if he didn’t run to prove himself, to show the world who he was.
“The only thing that matters is your honor,” a then-teenage Hunter told his father. “That’s what you always taught us: your honor.”
“You’re going to change, Dad,” warned his son Beau, who died in 2015. “You’ll never be the same again.”
Biden eventually dropped out of the race, but that’s a different situation. Beau Biden is gone, and that loss depressed Biden and set the tone for his presidency. Hunter Biden was convicted of three firearms-related felonies, and his ongoing legal troubles are said to be a major burden for the president.
Plus, Biden is 81 and the incumbent president, and Democrats close to him privately worry about what would happen if someone other than Biden were to run against Trump.
Biden has been adamant that his participation in the debate was a one-off and has said he would like to debate Trump again. Biden told Stephanopoulos to keep an eye on U.S. allies gathering in Washington next week for a NATO meeting, where he will try to strengthen relationships and hold a press conference.
“Listen,” Biden beckoned the interviewer, predicting the broad support he’s always believed he deserved, “and see what they say.”
