Surprise: GOP loved Biden’s good night
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President Biden's relatively smooth Thursday night press conference was received particularly well by one unlikely crowd: Republicans.
Why it matters: The mostly-solid performance actually hit a sweet spot for the GOP, several top advisors and aides say: It made it harder for some Democrats to convince Biden to step aside, even as it keeps the weeks-long conversation about his age and health going.
- Republicans are convinced that a weakened Biden at the top of the ticket is their best chance at a November landslide up and down the ballot, sources tell Axios.
- They think Kamala Harris would be a weak candidate, too, but many prefer a known weakened quantity (Biden) vs. the unknown (anyone else) as their foil.
Between the lines: Aside from his Vice President Trump slip up, Biden "passed the competency test, which probably makes throwing him from the train a more tortured process," one senior GOP campaign official told Axios.
- The longer and messier the should-Biden-stay-or-should-he-go drama is, the better for the GOP, others said
- One top strategist described it as the worst possible scenario for Democrats, with another dubbing Biden's current position as "purgatory."
- Yet another praised Donald Trump for having the discipline to stay out of the limelight over the past two weeks.
By the numbers: Early polls and analysis since the debate have shown several battleground states shift in Republicans' favor.
- Cook Political Report moved Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin all toward Trump — and it shifted the Michigan Senate race to a toss-up.
- National polls continue to show Biden and Trump neck-and-neck — even as more than 60% of Democrats in a recent ABC survey said they thought Biden should step aside.
The other side: The Biden campaign and the president's supporters have tried to put the spotlight back on Trump — including by running ads warning about the implications of the U.S. Supreme Court's presidential immunity ruling should Trump regain the White House.
- "[W]e have seen that when we remind voters what Trump has done and said... the voters who moved away from us after the debate came home," campaign officials Jen O'Malley Dillon and Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote in a Thursday memo obtained by Axios.
What to watch: After a couple of uncharacteristically quiet weeks, Trump will likely again revel in the spotlight as his party crowns him their nominee during the Republican National Convention, which kicks off Monday in Milwaukee.
- Republicans hope to use the week to project a united front and draw a sharp contrast with Democrats — and, for now, they have Biden right where they want him.
