Panicked Pennsylvania Democrats launch into cleanup mode after Biden’s bad debate night

Thirty minutes into the debate Thursday night, some Democrats in Pennsylvania were already panicking over President Joe Biden’s debate performance against former President Donald Trump.

One Democratic consultant got a text from an operative asking her what the rules would be to nominate Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro to replace Biden at the convention in Chicago in August. (Biden would have to decline the nomination to jump-start that highly theoretical process).

A prominent Biden fundraiser called it “across-the-board shock, surprise, disappointment.”

Others were quieting the alarm, noting that debates generally aren’t game-changers.

“Chill the f— out,” Sen. John Fetterman, who had a bad debate performance following his stroke in 2022 that caused Democrats to question his ability to win or serve in office, posted on X. “I refuse to join the Democratic vultures on Biden’s shoulder after the debate. No one knows more than me that a rough debate is not the sum total of the person and their record.”

And Shapiro, for his part, appeared Friday morning on both MSNBC and CNN to defend Biden.

”I’ll be the first to admit that that was not a good look in that debate last night but it doesn’t change the fact that there are stark competing differences in this race,” he said on CNN.

Asked in the CNN interview if Biden is the Democrats’ best option, Shapiro said: “Joe Biden earned the votes of primary voters and he is our nominee.”

The election is still five months away, and while CNN polling found most viewers thought Trump won the debate, 80% of viewers also told the network the debate would have no effect on their vote in November.

Still, it’s a missed opportunity for Biden, who was hoping to move the needle in a race that has remained static. In Pennsylvania, where the race has remained tied, Biden has lost some key parts of the constituency that elected him in 2020. He won by a little more than one percentage point in the state that has been narrowly decided the last two presidential election cycles. Even a small shift away from Biden could sway the outcome — and could hurt Pennsylvania Democrats running down-ballot, including Sen. Bob Casey.

Plenty of Pennsylvania Democrats were putting on their best faces Friday and repeating campaign talking points, urging people to focus on substance over speech and noting that Trump’s lies and policies are far more dangerous. But others were worrying about whether Biden is up to the rigors of a high-stakes campaign and second term.

“A disaster and very sad,” was how longtime Democratic ad maker Neil Oxman described Biden’s performance.

Oxman was unsurprised to see the party establishment defending the president. But he wonders if there will be cracks in the ranks in a week or two, when the next battleground state polls come out.

“Even though he was obviously not good, it’s premature until you see the chest X-ray,” Oxman said. “The poll numbers may not have changed one whit.”

“I’m telling friends and other donors to take a deep breath,” Biden fundraiser Alan Kessler said. “Let things develop. It wasn’t like the other guy distinguished himself last night. Let’s wait 10 days … see what polls are telling us at that point and decide where we go from there. In the meantime, it’s not the worst idea for people who want to have discussions, to have those discussions.”

Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D., Philadelphia) acknowledged, “he didn’t sound like his normal self,” but said Biden even at his worst “would be 1,000 times better for the future of this nation” than another Trump presidency.

Several other high-profile fundraisers, party operatives, and Democratic lawmakers told The Inquirer that they are concerned, with one high-ranking state Democratic official advocating that Shapiro become the party’s nominee. “We’re all Joe Biden fans. But the alternative is too scary to contemplate,” the lawmaker said.

Another elected Philadelphia Democrat, who requested anonymity to speak freely, questioned Biden’s team putting him up for a debate at all. “He should have never been on stage.”

Several Democrats also worried about the impact the debate could have on Casey, a close Biden ally up for reelection in November.

Casey, who is often an outspoken Biden surrogate, had not weighed in on the debate by midday Friday. His GOP opponent Dave McCormick quickly used Biden’s debate performance to highlight Casey’s closeness with the president.

“Just a few months ago, Bob Casey said there was ‘no question [Biden] is prepared to do this job today and would be were he re-elected,’” the McCormick campaign sent out in a release.

Asked for comment on the debate, Casey’s campaign responded with a statement that bashed McCormick but made no mention of Biden or the debate.

Before the debate, the Biden campaign had planned a “response” event outside the state Capitol on Friday morning, but canceled it shortly before it was scheduled to begin. A campaign spokesperson said it was canceled because of a conflict with House session.

Inside the Biden campaign, the mood was disappointed but not fatalistic. One staffer said the biggest fear was Trump would come across as measured and normal, which he didn’t. Trump lied throughout the debate and his non-answers on whether he condemned the Jan. 6, 2021 attack or would accept the results of the election were bad moments for him. The back and forth about golf skills also struck the staffer as a bad moment for Trump. “It was so weird and just showed, you’re also old.”

And Biden pressed on Friday. At a campaign rally in Raleigh, N.C., a much more energized and eloquent Biden, using a teleprompter, told a crowd he intended to win the election and slammed Trump’s performance.

“I know I’m not a young man. I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to... I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job.”

Sean Coit, a Pennsylvania-based Democratic consultant not working with either presidential campaign, said “there will be a lot of discussion among Democrats about exactly how much one debate mattered.”

The impact, he predicted, will also depend on how people consume it. Did they get the full brunt of it live or will they just see hand-picked soundbites?

Trump’s Pennsylvania supporters, meanwhile, celebrated his more restrained debate performance.

“President Trump showed energy and remained focused on two issues: the open border and comparing their two records on the economy and the wars around the world,” GOP consultant Guy Ciarrocchi said. “And, he was disciplined — especially by 2020 standards.”

Voters who gathered to watch the debates also seemed to agree it was a tough night for the president. At a Biden campaign watch party Thursday in Harrisburg, the crowd groaned when Biden botched an early answer and started to thin about an hour into the 90-minute debate.

Several supporters said they were worried that Biden’s verbal gaffes and some incoherent sentences — he has a stutter — would be mistaken for cognitive decline.

“Regardless of Biden’s individual performance, he actually knows what’s going on and can do the job, unlike his opponent,” said Antonio Megna, 28, of Mechanicsburg.

Meanwhile, the mood at Black Sheep Pub, where the Philadelphia Young Republicans gathered for a watch party, was celebratory as attendees laughed and clapped for Trump and mocked Biden.

“Biden was who I thought he was, which is a senile old man,” said Paul Sutton, 35, of Manayunk.

Matt Lamorgese, 31, of Rittenhouse Square, thought Biden stuck too closely to his rehearsed talking points. “I don’t think he had the ability to pivot,” Lamorgese said. “And I think you saw that in his rebuttals.”

Staff writer Anna Orso contributed to this report.