WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has told a key ally that he knows he may not be able to salvage his candidacy if he cannot convince the public in the coming days that he is up for the job after a disastrous debate performance last week.

The president, who the ally emphasized is still deeply in the fight for reelection, understands that his next few appearances heading into the holiday weekend must go well, particularly an interview scheduled for Friday with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News and campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

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“He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place” by the end of the weekend, said the ally, referring to Biden’s halting and unfocused performance in the debate. The person, who talked to the president in the past 24 hours, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation.

Andrew Bates, a White House spokesperson, said the report was “absolutely false” and that the White House had not been given enough time to respond.

The conversation is the first indication to become public that the president is seriously considering whether he can recover after a devastating performance on the debate stage in Atlanta on June 27. Concerns are mounting about his viability as a candidate and whether he could serve as president for another four years.

A top adviser to Biden, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the situation, said the president was “well aware of the political challenge he faces.”

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Campaign officials were nervously awaiting the results of an internal poll on Wednesday, recognizing that bad numbers could fuel the crisis. A CBS News poll released Wednesday morning showed former President Donald Trump edging ahead of Biden since the debate with 50% to 48% nationally and 51% to 48% in battleground states.

Biden has been slow to personally reach out to key Democrats, which has fueled anger in the party and frustrated some of his own advisers. He called only Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader, on Tuesday night, five days after the debate, and still had not spoken with Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate Democratic leader, as of Wednesday morning. Key donors expressed exasperation that he did not join a campaign call on Monday meant to assuage them.

The president was scheduled to have lunch on Wednesday with Vice President Kamala Harris and meet with Democratic governors at the White House in the evening. Until now, he has focused more on speaking with trusted advisers and family members, who have urged him to stay in the race.

But he has told at least one person that he is open to the possibility that his plans to move on from his debate performance — and flip the focus back to Trump — may not work.

Several allies of Biden have underscored that the president is still in the fight of his political life and largely sees this moment as a chance to come back from being counted out, as he has done many times throughout his half-century career.

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At the same time, they said, he is cleareyed about his uphill battle to convince voters, donors and the political class that his debate performance was an anomaly.

Some of the president’s advisers have grown increasingly pessimistic in the past day or so as the unrest in the party has continued to grow, a reflection of unhappiness not just over the debate performance but the handling of it since then.

Democrats have been mystified that Biden has been relying on advice from his son, Hunter Biden, who was convicted last month on gun charges stemming from when he was taking crack cocaine, rather than from the party’s top leaders. They have bristled at attacks on fellow Democrats derided by the campaign as the “bed-wetting brigade” for expressing concern about Joe Biden’s ability to beat Trump. And some Democrats have grown increasingly suspicious that the president’s team has not been fully forthcoming about the impact of aging on him.

Biden’s team had sought to build a firewall by persuading elected Democrats and well-known party figures not to publicly call on him to drop out. But Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first Democratic member of Congress to say on Tuesday that the president should step aside, and others have indicated privately that they may follow suit.

Key party donors have been privately calling House members, senators, super political action committees, the Biden campaign and the White House to say that they think Biden should step down, according to Democrats familiar with the discussion.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Katie Rogers/ Doug Mills
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