Damning new data shows there is a whopping 84 percent chance that Joe Biden will step aside in the 2024 presidential election as his high-profile political allies continue to abandon him following his disastrous performance in the June debate.
Biden, 81, initially sounded adamant that he would be the Democratic presidential nominee to take on Donald Trump in November, but he appears to be unwilling to discuss his political future.
Data from Polymarket, the world’s largest prediction market, was released on Friday. The market allows users to buy stocks with the probability of an event occurring.
The charts show that even after the debate, which took place in Atlanta on June 17, only 25 percent of users felt there was a chance Biden would drop out of the race.
In fact, that’s lower than the number who thought he would drop out of the race in March 2024, following Biden’s well-received State of the Union address.
President Joe Biden, 81, is recovering from Covid-19 at home as he mulls his political future
There have been calls for Biden to drop out of the Democratic nomination since his disastrous performance in the June debate.
Biden, 81, walks off debate stage alongside first lady Jill Biden
The number appears to have increased in early July, when leaders such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi gave lukewarm support to Biden’s campaign.
“It’s up to the president to decide whether he’s going to run or not. We all encourage him to make that decision because time is running out,” she said during an appearance on MSNBC.
Biden, meanwhile, remains in isolation as he battles Covid-19 at his home in Delaware, and the president is leaning on some longtime aides as he weighs whether to bow to mounting pressure to abandon the campaign.
On Thursday night, Montana Sen. Jon Tester became the second Democrat in the chamber (and now among nearly two dozen in Congress) to call for him to step down, saying “Biden should not seek reelection to another term.”
Biden’s campaign for president is calling a full-staff meeting for Friday, as a critical weekend approaches for the party, as Trump wrapped up a hectic Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Democrats, in the midst of a campaign, will consider the extraordinary possibility that Biden could step aside to make way for a new presidential candidate before their own convention next month in Chicago.
As anxiety and information swirled, Biden’s closest friend in Congress and his campaign co-chair, Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, told The Associated Press:
“President Biden deserves the respect of having meaningful family conversations with members of the House and Senate caucus and colleagues and Democratic leadership and not fighting leaks and press statements,” he said.
The information in this article is based in part on information from nearly a dozen people who asked to remain anonymous to discuss private and sensitive deliberations. The Washington Post was the first to report Obama’s involvement.
Campaign officials said Biden was even more committed to staying in the race, even as calls for him to leave grew. And top West Wing advisers have had no internal discussions or conversations with the president about the possibility of Biden dropping out.
On Friday, the Democratic National Committee’s policy arm is expected to meet to discuss plans for virtual roll call voting to nominate the president in early August, ahead of the party’s convention later that month.
But there is also time to reconsider. Biden has been told that the campaign is having trouble raising money, and key Democrats see an opportunity for him to skip the campaign trail for a few days to encourage his exit.
Within his cabinet, some are resigned to the possibility that he will lose in November.
Biden tested positive for COVID-19 while traveling to Las Vegas earlier this week and is experiencing “mild symptoms,” including a “general malaise” from the infection, the White House said.
The president himself, in a radio interview recorded just before testing positive, dismissed the idea that it was too late to recover politically, telling Univision’s Luis Sandoval that many people are not focused on the November elections until September.
“All the talk about who’s leading, where and how, it’s like, you know, so far everything between Trump and I has been basically even,” he said in an excerpt of the interview published Thursday.
Former President Donald Trump has enjoyed a surge in popularity after he was shot during a rally in Pennsylvania
But in Congress, Democratic lawmakers have begun having private conversations about potentially endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as an alternative.
One lawmaker said Biden’s own advisers have been unable to reach a unanimous recommendation on what he should do. More members of Congress are considering joining others who have called for Biden to step down.
Obama has told allies that Biden must consider the viability of his campaign, but he has also made it clear that the decision is his own.
The former president has fielded calls in recent days from members of congressional leadership, Democratic governors and key donors to discuss their concerns about his former vice president.