RALEIGH: President Joe Biden said on Friday he intended to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the November presidential election, giving no sign that he would consider dropping out of the race after a feeble debate performance that dismayed his fellow Democrats.

“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” an ebullient Biden said at a rally one day after the head-to-head showdown with his Republican rival, which was widely viewed as a defeat for the 81-year-old president. “I don’t walk as easy as I used to, I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to,” he said, as the crowd chanted “four more years”.

“I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul that I could do this job. The stakes are too high,” Biden said.

His verbal stumbles and occasionally meandering responses in the debate heightened voter concerns that he might not be fit to serve another four-year term and prompted some of his fellow Democrats to wonder whether they could replace him as their candidate for the Nov 5 presidential election.

For his part Trump, 78, put forward a series of falsehoods throughout the debate and deflected questions, further raising concerns about his own fitness for office, but much of the focus afterward was squarely on Biden, especially among Democrats.

They demurred when asked if Biden should stay in the race. “That’s the president’s decision,” Democratic Senator Jack Reed told a local TV station in Rhode Island. The Biden campaign said it had raised $14 million on Thursday and Friday and posted its single best hour of fundraising immediately after the debate. The Trump campaign said it raised $8 million on the night of the debate.

One possible bright spot for Biden: preliminary viewership data showed that only 48 million Americans watched the debate, far short of the 73 million who watched the candidates’ last faceoff in 2020.

Biden, already the oldest American president in history, faced only token opposition during the party’s months-long nominating contest, and he has secured enough support to guarantee his spot as the Democratic nominee.

Former president Trump likewise overcame his intra-party challengers early in the year, setting the stage for a long and bitter general election fight.

That would give the party time to pick another nominee at its national convention, which starts on Aug 19 — a potentially messy process that could pit Kamala Harris, the nation’s first Black female vice president, against governors and other officeholders whose names have been floated as possible replacements.

If he made this decision, it’s important that we use it to our advantage, Democratic Representative Katie Porter said at a conference in Colorado.

Democratic officials played down that possibility.

“It’s not likely to happen,” Biden campaign co-chair Mitch Landrieu said on CNN.

One campaign staffer said they were frustrated by Biden’s performance and hoped it would prompt top strategists to rethink their approach.

But other aides and allies said privately they did not think the blowback would threaten his chances of winning the nomination.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other senior Democrats — including possible replacements like California Governor Gavin Newsom — said they were not abandoning Biden.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2024