Democratic donors ‘to withhold $US90m as Joe Biden enters twilight zone

Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi are thought to oppose the President’s re-election bid as poll suggests Kamala Harris would fare better against Donald Trump.

President Joe Biden at the Washington press conference. Picture: Getty Images

President Joe Biden’s struggle to save his re-election campaign has suffered a setback as top donors threatened to withhold $US90 million ($133m) unless he is replaced as the Democratic candidate.

Mr Biden is also reeling from reports that senior party figures including Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi have privately spoken about growing concerns over his ability to win a second term against Donald Trump.

Mr Biden, 81, has failed to quell a revolt in his party about his candidacy with a series of shaky performances since a disastrous television debate with Mr Trump last month, when he repeatedly mumbled and lost his thread.

The donors, some of whom are said to be willing to spend more than $US10 million each, told Future Forward, the biggest Biden “super-pac” – an arm’s length campaign group not under the president’s direct control – that the funds would be frozen unless Mr Biden stood aside for a younger candidate.

Donors told The New York Times that they had been approached by the super-pac to confirm contributions after the debate against Mr Trump, 78. The donors said instead that they were “holding off”. A spokesman for Future Forward declined to comment.

The development deals another blow to Mr Biden’s chances of clinging on to the Democratic nomination. He has steadfastly refused to stand aside despite calls for him to quit after several lacklustre performances.

On Friday (Saturday AEST), President Biden again firmly rejected speculation he would drop out, telling a rally in the battleground state of Michigan that he would beat “threat to the nation” Donald Trump.

“There’s been a lot of speculation lately. What’s Joe Biden going to do? Is he going to stay in the race? Is he going to drop out? Here’s my answer: I am running and we’re going to win. I’m not going to change that,” Biden said, to chants of “Don’t you quit.”

A leaked poll from Open Labs, a group closely linked to Future Forward, conducted shortly after the debate last month found the President had suffered the “largest single-week drop” in vote share since it began tracking the race in 2021.

The poll found that several potential Democratic replacements – including Vice-President Kamala Harris, California governor Gavin Newsom, and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer – fared better in head-to-head matchups against Mr Trump than the President did.

The holding-back of donations is another setback for Biden’s chances of clinging on to the Democratic nomination.

Mr Biden has declared Ms Harris, is capable of taking over the Oval Office but he would only step down if data shows he cannot beat Mr Trump.

The President’s push to remain on top of the Democratic ticket was weakened on Thursday (Friday AEST) after a make-or-break press conference full of gaffes failed to stop the tidal wave of Democrats calling on him to end his re-election campaign.

The White House was bracing for more members of the party to declare over the next day that Mr Biden was not fit to serve after the President mixed up Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin at the end of the NATO summit and later called Ms Harris “Vice-President Trump”.

Just days from his predecessor and bitter rival Mr Trump being crowned the Republican presidential nominee at the GOP convention next week in the battleground state of Wisconsin, the Democrats are slowly coalescing around Ms Harris as the closest alternative to Mr Biden.

But Mr Biden, 81, is still holding on to power and tried to use a one-hour press conference to defend his legacy on the economy, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, his withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the Israel-Hamas war.

While some Democrats were relieved by his performance and continued grasp of foreign policy, the President’s confusion of Ms Harris with Mr Trump appeared to cause the members of his top security team – Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan – to physically wince as they sat in the front row.

And it was reported that former president Barack Obama and ex-house speaker Nancy Pelosi have held secret talks over how to remove Mr Biden, as they now ­believe he cannot win re-election due to his advanced age and constant stumbles.

Mr Biden made it clear he ­believed Ms Harris was a “first rate person” and capable of being president if he could no longer perform.

“I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump (Harris) to be vice-president if I didn’t think she was qualified to be president,” Mr Biden said. “From the very beginning, I made no bones about that. She is qualified to be president. That’s why I picked her.

“The way she’s handled the issue of freedom of women’s bodies, to have control, second, her ability to handle almost any issue on the board, she was a hell of a prosecutor.”

A new Washington Post poll found Ms Harris led Mr Trump by 49 to 46 per cent among all adults, one of many surveys that suggest the Vice-President would perform better or as well as Mr Biden in November’s vote.

While Ms Harris’s negative approval ratings and struggles through the past four years have left many Democrats wary of putting her at the top of the party’s ticket, the inability to find an ­alternative candidate and the short time before the convention is making her elevation more likely.

Asked if he would reconsider running if staff gave him data showing Ms Harris would fare better against Mr Trump, Mr Biden said: “No, unless they said there is no way you can win.”

He then added, whispering: “No one’s saying that. No poll says that.”

He also said delegates at the nominating convention in Chicago next month were “free to do whatever they want” but he had “overwhelming support”.

US Vice-President Kamala Harris in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Friday (AEST). Picture: Getty Images

Ms Harris, 59, has remained loyal to the President even as the number of Democrats in congress who have publicly called for Mr Biden to stand aside rose to 17 in the wake of the press conference.

As Ms Harris begins to overtake Mr Biden as the most competitive Democrat in head-to-head polls with Mr Trump, the Vice-President was showing off her campaigning skills in the swing state of North Carolina just minutes before her boss’s press conference.

“We always knew this election would be tough, and the past few days have been a reminder that running for election in the United States is never easy nor should it be,” she said.

“But one thing we know about our President, Joe Biden, is that he is a fighter.”

Eric Sorensen from Illinois became the 17th congressional Democrat to join the bulk of the mainstream US press and high-profile supporter George Clooney to call on Mr Biden to stand aside, posting a statement soon after the press conference.

“Joe Biden ran for president with the purpose of putting country over party. Today, I am asking him to do that again,” Mr Sorensen said.

Anthony Albanese on Friday said the Putin gaffe was “unfortunate” but joined other world leaders in defending Mr Biden. “Of course, it was unfortunate what happened. From time to time, I think most people in public life or in their private life will have got a name wrong … but we’ll continue to work with President Biden, and then we will work with whoever the US people determine should be the next president,” the Prime Minister said in Brisbane.

On Thursday (Friday AEST), Mr Biden was defiant and said he was “determined to run” despite polls that show him falling behind Mr Trump nationally and in crucial swing states, and betting markets that give him little more than a 10 per cent chance of winning in November against Mr Trump’s 58 per cent.

Donald Trump meets with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban on Friday (AEST). Picture: X

“I think I’m the most qualified. I beat him once and I will beat him again … I’m not in this for my legacy. I’m in it to finish the job I’ve started,” he said.

Whatever the level of discontent, only the President is able to end his candidacy given he has already won the lion’s share of delegates, all of whom are obliged to vote for him in Chicago unless he releases them.

Furthermore, the hundreds of millions in campaign funds the Biden-Harris campaign already raised cannot easily be transferred to another candidate apart from Ms Harris, who is on the ticket.

If the President refused to step aside, his cabinet could oust him from the presidency using the 25th Amendment, established in the wake of John F. Kennedy’s assassination in the rare contingency of where a president might be too incapacitated to undertake the duties of office.

The President drew ridicule on social media for ending his press conference by saying “listen to him”, in response to a reporter’s question about what he would say to Mr Trump’s teasing of his performance.

“Great job, Joe!” Mr Trump posted on social media, revelling in a performance that could result in the former president facing off against an alternative Democrat that could include Democrat governors California’s Gavin Newsom or Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer.

It was Mr Biden’s eighth press conference in his presidency, fewer than any other president in more than a generation, a fact that’s prompted criticism of White House staff for allegedly shielding the President’s decline from the public.

NBC reported on Thursday that staff had begun to leak against the President, telling the network: “He needs to drop out. He will never recover from this.”

“No one involved in the effort thinks he has a path,” a second person said.

– with The Times, AFP