Nervous donors await polls before making a call on Biden

• That makes the next two weeks as crucial to Biden's survival as the initial 24 hours after the debate, when Biden trotted out supportive statements from former Presidents Obama and Clinton, and held an energetic rally in North Carolina.

What we're hearing: In private, donors frantically are texting each other, eager for any information on just how disastrous the night was. But so far they aren't calling for the party to ditch Biden.

• That could change if the next round of highly regarded polls look as dismal as his debate performance, several donors told Axios.
• "You can't go into an election 10 points down in early July," said one top donor. "You just can't."

Driving the news: Top White House officials, including Chief of Staff Jeff Zients, counselor Steve Ricchetti and senior adviser Anita Dunn, have worked the phones this weekend calling donors, allies and elected officials, trying to calm nerves.

• They reminded voters that the fundamental dynamic of the race hasn't changed: Voters will choose between Biden and Trump.
• Biden officials cite a pair of sold-out weekend fundraisers — and strong grassroots donations — to bolster their view that die-hard Democrats are still with Biden.
• "Team Biden-Harris has raised over $33M since Thursday, of which $26M is from grassroots donations," Lauren Hitt, a Biden spokesman, said in a statement. "Nearly half of our grassroots donations were from first-time donors to the campaign this cycle."
• New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D), who hosted Biden at a fundraiser on Saturday, told Axios the president impressed donors during an unscripted Q&A session at dinner.
• "We had one table discussion across a broad variety of topics," Murphy said. "He had absolute command of the details and big picture on every item — from Ukraine to, how do you get universal pre-K."

The intrigue: Initial polling — including a survey from Morning Consult that said 60% of voters think Biden should should "definitely" or "probably" be replaced — still has the race essentially unchanged, with Biden and Trump essentially tied.

• "The most consequential question that we asked voters, who are you going to vote for — between Joe Biden and Donald Trump — that is where you continue to see voters saying they are supporting the president," Molly Murphy, one of Biden's pollsters, said on MSNBC.
• Donors likely will want several weeks of polling data before accepting the Biden campaign's line that the president can recover, but they're bracing for some bad numbers.

Zoom in: Some in the Democratic establishment, including Sen. Majority Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), had weighed the prospect of Biden having a dismal first debate.

• Holding the debate so early in the cycle had some obvious benefits, Schumer told allies.
• He figured it could give Biden time to recover if he performed poorly, or give the party the option to make a switch before Democratic National Convention, which begins Aug. 19.

Now, "there are very honest and serious and rigorous conversations taking place at every level of our party," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told MSNBC.

• "We're having a serious conversation about what to do. One thing I can tell you is that regardless of what President Biden decides, our party is going to be unified."

Zoom out: Throughout the campaign — despite massive ad buys by Biden and Trump's 34 convictions in his New York hush money case — the public polling on the race has hardly budged.

• After some initial indication that Trump's convictions took a slight toll on his standing, a pre-debate poll from the New York Times had him ahead.
• The hope among some Democrats is that likely voters will be as unmoved by Biden's stammering debate performance as they were by Trump's criminal conviction.