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Even before the debate, the age of the 81-year-old Democratic president had been a liability with voters, and the prime-time face-off appeared to reinforce the public’s deep-seated concerns before perhaps the largest audience he will have in the four months until election day. CNN said more than 51 million people watched the debate.

While the president was huddled with his family, prominent Democrats rallied to deliver a public show of support for his campaign on Sunday.

“I do not believe that Joe Biden has a problem leading for the next four years,” said one close ally, James Clyburn.

“Joe Biden should continue to run on his record.”

Senator Raphael Warnock, a Georgia Democrat, spoke of Trump’s many falsehoods during the debate, including about the January 6 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters, immigration and the outcome of the 2020 election.

“Whenever his mouth was moving, he was lying,” Warnock said of Trump.

‘Maybe all incumbent Democratic senators should [write] to Biden asking him to … step aside so the convention can choose a new candidate.’

Former Democratic senator Tom Harkin

But concern simmered among some Democrats that Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee were not taking seriously enough the impact of the debate.

Former Iowa senator Tom Harkin, who served for more than two decades with Biden in the Senate, called the debate “a disaster from which Biden cannot recover”.

Harkin suggested that Democratic senators in pivotal races and “maybe all incumbent Democratic senators should pen a letter to Biden asking him to release his delegates and step aside so the convention can choose a new candidate”, according to an email to supporters.

“This is a perilous time, and is more important than the ego or desires of Joe Biden to stay as president,” Harkin concluded.

Jamie Raskin, a Democrat representative from Maryland, described “very honest, serious and rigorous conversations taking place at every level of our party ... about what to do”.

But DNC chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden’s campaign manager, Julie Chavez Rodriguez, held a Saturday afternoon call with dozens of committee members across the country, where they offered a rosy assessment of the path forward and gave no opportunity for others on the call to respond with questions.

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Multiple committee members on the call, most granted anonymity to talk about the private discussion, described feeling like they were being asked to ignore a serious predicament.

“There were a number of things that could have been said in addressing the situation. But we didn’t get that. We were being gaslit,” said Joe Salazar, an elected DNC member from Colorado, who was on the call.

AP, Reuters

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