U.S. President Joe Biden is facing physical and political isolation Thursday as he deals with a positive COVID-19 test at a critical juncture of his campaign, amid more calls from Democrats to put aside his reelection bid against former U.S. President Donald Trump.
In recent days, party figures including House of Representatives Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have told the president that his chances of winning the November election are dwindling and that a prospective loss could imperil the party's hopes of capturing either chamber of Congress.
Former President Barack Obama, whom Biden served as vice president for eight years, has also reportedly told political allies that Biden's chance of winning is narrowing.
Earlier this week, California Congressman Adam Schiff, one of Trump's most vocal critics and a close ally of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi who still holds much influence in the party, called for Biden to quit the race.
"A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the president can defeat Donald Trump in November," Schiff said in a statement.
Actor and Biden fundraiser George Clooney has called on the president to end his campaign. Another top Democratic fundraiser, movie producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, has warned the president that major donors are reluctant to keep funds flowing.
U.S. news accounts say Biden has been listening to fellow Democrats' concerns.
But the 81-year-old candidate shows no overt signs he is about to drop out.
"I've demonstrated that I know how to get things done for the country in spite of the fact they're told we couldn't get it done," he said in an interview with BET News earlier this week. "But there's more to do, and I'm reluctant to walk away from that."
'He plans to win'
Publicly, the White House maintains optimism. Following Biden's meetings with Jeffries and Schumer, deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said Biden told the two Democratic legislative leaders that "he is the nominee of the party, he plans to win, and looks forward to working with both of them to pass his 100 days agenda to help working families."
Still, the outlook is grim for the president, said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics.
"Democrats can't even decide whether Biden is really in trouble or not. And if he is, how to get him out of the race. And if they get him out of the race, who should replace him and how?" he told VOA.
"Meanwhile, the Republicans have gotten their act together," he added, noting the party's ongoing national convention and Donald Trump's rising poll numbers after his assassination attempt.
Republicans are portraying Trump surviving the shooting as part of God's plan to protect and deliver him victory.
The Democratic National Committee has delayed plans to nominate Biden in a virtual roll call before the August 19 convention because of backlash from Democrats who say they need time to discuss concerns about the president's age.
Seventy percent of Americans said they are not confident that Biden has the mental capacity to be president, according to an AP-NORC poll. For Trump, it's 51%.
What's next?
In separate occasions, Biden has said that the direst of polling results could get him to quit, or if there is a "medical condition that emerged," or if the "Lord Almighty comes out and tells" him to.
Should Biden drop out, the most orderly scenario would be for him to endorse an alternative. Vice President Kamala Harris would be a logical choice, at least financially, because as part of the Biden-Harris ticket, she would inherit the campaign's war chest.
Democrats have been quietly testing head-to-head polling between Harris and Trump, with the vice president at times, but not always, faring better than Biden, even slightly leading Trump.
Or, the party could hold an open convention and choose a nominee from among several other candidates, including California Governor Gavin Newsom or Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. It could be a tumultuous process, something Democrats would want to avoid two months before the election.
Quentin Fulks, Biden's deputy campaign manager, told reporters Thursday the campaign is "not working through any scenarios where Biden is not at the top of the ticket," and that Biden looks forward to accepting the party's nomination at its national convention in Chicago next month.
Most national polls show Trump with a consistent 1- to 3-percentage-point lead over Biden.
American University presidential historian Alan Lichtman urged Democrats to stick with their incumbent, calling decision-making based on polls "the height of folly and ignorance."
"To claim, you know, based on the polls, which constantly change, who's going to win and who's going to lose," he told VOA.
In the face of adversity, Democrats "have no spine," he said. "I have never in my more than 50 years of observing politics, ever seen a political party so foolishly self- destruct."
Lichtman's "13 Keys to the White House" has predicted all but one U.S. election results since 1984. The system ignores polling data, including that 65% of Democrats said Biden should step aside, according to an AP-NORC survey.
Battleground states
Trump's victory margins in the polls are larger in some battleground, highly contested states that both candidates need to capture the presidency starting next January.
U.S. presidential elections are not determined by the national popular vote. Rather, the election is essentially a 50-state contest, with the winner in all but two of the states collecting all of that state's so-called electoral votes. Those electoral votes are allocated to the states in proportion to their populations.
In 2020, Biden nationally received 7 million more votes than Trump but carried four closely contested states by a collective margin of only about 123,000 votes. Had those states gone the other way, Trump would have been reelected.
The 2024 contest is expected to be similarly close in a handful of states, while both Biden and Trump are expected to pile up big vote margins and easily win the states that predictably vote for one party or the other.
Virtually every Democrat who has called for Biden to end his campaign has cited his faltering performance at his debate with Trump last month, when Biden looked tired, often lost his train of thought, and failed to consistently press his case against Trump or defend his own 3½-year tenure in the White House.
