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Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt., is one of the growing number of Democrats expressing public concerns about President Biden's ability to continue running for re-election. AP Photo/John McDonnell /AP hide caption

President Biden's top campaign staff attempted to salvage support from Democratic Senators Thursday in a nearly two-hour meeting that did not appear to immediately resolve their fears.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who was one of the first Senators to publicly raise concerns about Biden's continued candidacy, told reporters following the meeting that he needs to see more from the campaign and more from Biden himself.

"Some of my concerns are allayed, some other have been deepened," Blumenthal said. "I need more of the kind of analytics that show the path to success."

Biden Campaign senior advisors Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti and Biden campaign Chair Jen OMalley Dillon called the meeting a day before as support for Biden appeared to deteriorate among Democrats on Capitol Hill.

The meeting was viewed by many Democrats as a critical opportunity for Biden's team to convince skeptical and fearful senators that Biden can not only run and win, but he can help Democrats keep control of the Senate.

In a memo obtained by NPR, Jen OMalley Dillon and Julie Chavez Rodriguez told staff on Thursday that theres a path to win the election, despite the setback of the debate, focusing on the Blue Wall states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.

While there is no question there is increased anxiety following the debate, we are not seeing this translate into a drastic shift in vote share, they said in the memo, citing internal polling data as well as an ABC/Ipsos poll showing the race is a toss-up in key states.

That poll also shows a majority of Democratic voters wanted Biden to step aside. They said there is no sign in the polls that alternate Democratic nominees would do any better than Biden.

They said the campaign needs to stay focused on contrasting Bidens achievements with Trumps record on reproductive rights and on the Project 2025 agenda. The surest way to help Donald Trump is to spend his convention talking about our nominating process instead of the MAGA extremism that will be on stage in Milwaukee, they said.

The vast majority of Senators left the meeting eager to avoid questions from reporters. However Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., reiterated her support for Biden.

But a growing number of Democrats publicly and privately have raised concerns about Biden in recent days. Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo, publicly confirmed that he told members this week that he is worried Biden will lose the election "by a landslide" and "take the House and Senate" with him.

Further criticism followed, including from Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley.

"I think President Biden should look at all of the information and carry on detailed conversations with key leaders, including Leader Schumer and Leader Jeffries, and should do what's best for the nation," Merkley told NPR in an interview.

He acknowledged that leaders and rank and file members are "extremely worried."

Vermont Sen. Peter Welch wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post sayin that Democrats "cannot unsee President Biden's disastrous debate performance" and urging Biden to back down.

But most have stopped short of asking him to step aside. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., has raised concerns but repeated a line shared by most Democrats: ultimately, the decision is out of their hands.

Well thats up to him," Tester said Wednesday. "Thats up to him."

Democrats are now closely watching a rare solo press conference scheduled for Thursday evening following the NATO summit in Washington. It will be an opportunity for Biden to demonstrate his ability on a national stage and prove that he can handle the campaign road ahead.

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Biden campaign rushes to convince Senate Democrats that Biden can win - NPR

President Biden entered Thursday night hoping that a steady performance at a news conference with the national press corps would quell dissension among Democrats, some of whom want him out of the race.

But within minutes of his departure from the stage, two more Democratic representatives joined the growing number of party members calling for him to end his re-election campaign against former President Donald J. Trump.

The 2024 election will define the future of American democracy, and we must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trumps promised MAGA authoritarianism, Representative Jim Himes, a moderate Democrat from Connecticut and the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden.

And Representative Scott Peters of California also argued that Mr. Biden should leave the race, saying, The stakes are high, and we are on a losing course.

Later in the evening, Representative Eric Sorensen of Illinois joined their ranks, becoming the 18th Democratic member of either the House or the Senate to call for Mr. Biden to step aside.

More Democrats may defect on Friday, now that members of Congress no longer have to worry about embarrassing the president during the NATO summit that took place in Washington this week. But other Democrats said Mr. Bidens deft grasp of policy and the fact that he answered questions for nearly an hour was heartening, despite awkward moments like a flub in which he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as Vice President Trump.

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After Bidens News Conference, Doubters and Defenders Weigh In - The New York Times

President Joe Biden did pretty well at his press conference Thursday night, and that may have disappointed a lot of Democrats. They were probably hoping for one of two outcomes: either that he would do badly, making it easier to persuade him to drop out of the race, or that he would knock it out of the park, allaying their concerns, making them believe that maybe he can stay in and win the election after all.

Instead, he did fine. Had the catastrophic debate two weeks ago not happened, this press conference would not have made a dent. It might not even have been broadcast in prime time; certainly, the cable news panels wouldnt have spent hours afterward scrutinizing every line.

A little before the press conference, as the three-day NATO summit came to an end, Biden introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as President Putin (though he recovered and corrected himself in seconds). During the press conference, he referred to Vice President Harris as Vice President Trump. A reporter asked him afterward if this didnt prove that he isnt in great cognitive condition.

Cmon. These are the sorts of mental hiccups that everyone lets out now and then. It doesnt necessarily mean squat. But because of the debate, every Biden speech, press conference, debate, or random conversation will be placed under a microscope, every stumble or stutter underlined, blown up to a large-font headline.

The NATO summit, which Biden hosted and which his press conference was meant to highlight, seemed to go quite wellfor the alliance and for Biden. Dozens, even hundreds, of reporters must have canvassed every foreign official, high and low, in attendance to see how they thought Biden came off: Did he have a Parkinsons moment? Did he ever mumble incoherently?

At least so far, Ive seen no reports of any sources shaking their heads or clucking in regret about the American presidents declining state. Which isnt to say no such moments occurred, or that Biden is not in decline. Its just that this summit and this press conferencewhich were touted as pivotal to Bidens political career and to the fate of democracymoved the story along not one bit.

And so the media will wait in suspense for the next pivotal moment. Is it possible Biden will suffer no bad nights between now and the election? When he has one, what conclusions will be reached? (In the background, Im right now hearing one cable-news commentator moaning, We cant live like this forever.)

Certainly the news shows are covering nothing elsenot even Trump, whose media advisers have shrewdly persuaded him to stay relatively (and uncharacteristically) quiet. As every consultant knows, when your opponent is digging himself into a big hole, make yourself scarce.

Stories about the NATO summit itself were seen as secondary to the Biden psychodrama, even though the event was quite successful. The allies reaffirmed their commitment to spending 2 percent of their gross domestic product on defense, upped their support for Ukraine, laid out a path for Ukraines eventual membership in NATO (though not right now).

At a press gathering earlier in the day, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that at a roundtable of NATO members, each head of state expressed thanks to the United States and to the president personally for making all this progress possible. Biden repeated the point at the press conference. Those leaders were probably sincere. Biden has been largely responsible, and almost every head of state is terrified at the prospect of another term of Trump, who has disdain for alliances in general and has talked about leaving NATO in particular.

There were substantive questions at the press conferenceabout the summit, about Ukraine, about the Middle East warand Biden answered them at length and with deep knowledge. This is his specializationit has been since he became a senator more than 50 years agoand it showed. Aside from the two already noted, he committed no gaffes, no stumbles over leaders names, no errors of fact; it was all clear.

And it was in these moments that Biden made his case for staying in the race. A reporter asked at one point about his remark, early on in his term, that he considered himself a bridgea one-term transition to younger leadership. What had changed, the reporter asked, meaning: Why are you running again? He replied, What changed was the gravity of the situation I inherited, in economics, foreign policy, and the country.

He added, Im not in this for my legacy. Im in this to complete the job. The only legitimate question, he insisted, is Am I getting the job done? Can you name me someone whos gotten more major legislation passed in three years?

Biden seems still to be hoping that this becomes the only serious question among the voters as well. For the moment, for good or ill, he genuinely seems to be staying in the race.

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Democrats Were Hoping for One of Two Things Thursday Night. Joe Biden Didnt Give Them Either. - Slate

What I am hearing from congressional Democrats about President Biden is this: He has done little to nothing to allay their fears. But his defiance and his fury has been enough to stay their hand. The caucus meetings House and Senate Democrats held this week were an airing of grievances and despair, but they didnt chart a path forward. Democrats are drifting toward a grim march to defeat led by a candidate theyve lost faith in. What they need is a process through which they can gather the information they need to make a final decision. I think one is in reach.

Let me try to offer the most generous version I can of the positions the key players hold, beginning with Biden. I wouldnt be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024, he told congressional Democrats in a forceful letter that was released on Monday. Take him at his word. He disagrees with the pessimism about both his chances and his capabilities. He feels he has been underestimated before and is being underestimated now. He thinks the polls are wrong. He thinks the media is biased against him. He believes that his performance at the debate was a reflection of a bad cold and an off night rather than a general diminishment. And in the conversations he is having, and the cheering crowds he is seeing for himself, there is no groundswell begging for him to step aside.

There are two main camps among congressional Democrats. One believes that Biden should not be running again but fears there is nothing it can do about it. If Biden wont withdraw, then criticizing him only weakens him and down-ballot Democrats. Representative Jerry Nadler, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, is among those who told his colleagues that Biden should step aside. But faced with the presidents resistance, he backed off. Whether I have concerns or not is beside the point, Nadler said on Tuesday. Hes going to be our nominee, and we all have to support him.

The other camp remains genuinely uncertain about whether Biden is capable of another campaign and another term. The debate shocked these Democrats. They hadnt seen him like that before. But to call for the incumbent president to withdraw from the race is a severe and unusual act. Maybe it really was just a bad night. Maybe the reports of Bidens worsening lapses are untrue or overblown. These senators and representatives are asking the question Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House, asked: Is this an episode or is this a condition?

What Democrats need to admit to themselves is that Biden is denying them the information they need to answer that question. Since the debate, he has done a small handful of short interviews. He called into two radio shows where the hosts would ask preapproved questions. His interview with George Stephanopoulos lasted 22 minutes. He called into Morning Joe, which has been the friendliest place for him in cable news, for less than 20 minutes. He has not gone to the Hill and talked, in a lengthy and unscripted way, with either the House or Senate Democratic caucuses. Its not nearly enough.

In my conversations with Biden aides, Ive come to believe that they see interviews and town halls and news conferences as bizarre media obsessions. They dont trust Biden to perform in those settings, but they also dont think it matters. Theyve persuaded themselves that the job of the president is the job of making good decisions, and they think Biden is still capable of making those decisions. Whether he can survive 60 minutes with Chris Wallace, to them, is akin to whether he can do 20 push-ups: interesting, but irrelevant.

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Opinion | Democrats Are Drifting Toward the Worst of All Possible Worlds - The New York Times

Democrats response to the growing tempest over whether President Biden should stay in the 2024 race has been to focus like a laser on something else: Project 2025. The project is a detailed and aggressive plan from top allies of Donald Trump to push American government far to the right and vest more power in Trumps hands.

Trump is now straining to distance himself from the project, despite its overlap with his own priorities and his many links to it. (A CNN review found that six former Trump Cabinet secretaries have been involved, as have at least 140 people who worked in the Trump administration.)

A new poll gets at why both sides are doing what theyre doing and how important the intensifying clash could be to the stretch run of the 2024 campaign.

It suggests that if Democrats can drive home the idea that a second Trump term would be a more authoritarian one, that could alienate the most crucial 2024 voters, the double haters.

Those double haters the approximately 1 in 5 voters who dislike both Biden and Trump tend to be the least authoritarian-leaning voters of all.

The Monmouth University poll is one of the most extensive looks to date at Americans attitudes toward authoritarianism. And like others before it, the poll shows that Republicans are significantly more inclined toward the idea.

After asking a battery of questions to gauge voters authoritarian proclivities, it found that 7 in 10 voters who liked Trump rated above average on its authoritarian-belief scale. Thats compared with about 3 in 10 voters who liked Biden.

(The questions included whether we should get rid of the rotten apples who are ruining everything, whether we need a strong, determined leader who will crush evil, and whether it is the duty of every patriotic citizen to help stomp out the rot that is poisoning the country from within.)

But the double haters were even less likely than Democrats to embrace such ideas. Overall, just 2 in 10 rated above average on authoritarian beliefs.

While just 4 percent of voters who like Trump rated low on their authoritarian beliefs, a 56 percent majority of double haters did.

Any such scale is only as good as the questions that are used. But to get a sense for the specific differences between double haters and Trump supporters:

Theres a real question of just how much these attitudes pertain specifically to ideas like Project 2025. Maybe double haters notionally oppose authoritarian ideals, for instance, but support strongman policies like mass deportation when its an issue they care about. And the fact that double haters dont embrace these strong statements could simply reflect how they are less engaged and feel less strongly about the state of affairs something thats generally true of swing voters.

But Project 2025 is clearly a useful shorthand for Democrats. In one phrase, it embodies the politically potent idea of powerful people working behind the scenes to drive things in a more extreme direction and to put much more power in the hands of a former president that these double haters, it should be emphasized, dont like.

While the official Republican Party is shying away from a detailed platform that could alienate voters, Project 2025s detailed proposals are out there for everyone to consume potentially via Democratic attack ads and render judgment on.

The fact that Trump is now straining to distance himself from Project 2025 is telling. The trick for Democrats is in making it stick to him.

Of course, among the many other problems with Bidens debate performance two weeks ago was that he didnt mention Project 2025 even once.

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Analysis | Trumps authoritarian lean appeals to the right. Swing voters, not so much. - The Washington Post