Three maps that explain Biden’s predicament

FEAR FACTOR — Today, President Joe Biden kicked off a critical week with his most defiant responses yet on the question of withdrawing his candidacy, aiming to stanch ongoing discussions about a potential exit and mounting calls for him to drop out.

In a private call with donors, Biden said he’s done talking about the disastrous debate that sparked panic within the party about his fitness to take on Donald Trump. In a live interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” he played the populist card, criticizing the party elites “that don’t think I should run.” Prior to that appearance, the president sent a strongly worded letter to Capitol Hill Democrats reiterating his commitment to remain in the race.”The question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And it’s time for it to end,” he wrote.

“I have no doubt that I — and we — can and will defeat Donald Trump.” Biden insisted.

The trouble is, aside from the forcefulness of his pushback today, Biden still hasn’t offered convincing evidence of how, exactly, he’ll do it. And so the question of whether he should bow out isn’t likely to be decided by his insistence that he’s not leaving the race but rather by three maps that will shape the party’s thinking.

The first is the map of Democratic governors. They’ve been largely low-key during the party’s crisis of confidence and publicly supportive of Biden. One reason is that few of them are on the ballot this year — there are just 11 governor’s races in total. No Democratic incumbents are running for reelection, meaning none of them has to worry about being dragged under by a weak top-of-the-ticket Democratic performance.

The Democratic governors most frequently mentioned as presidential prospects — Gavin Newsom of California, JB Pritzker of Illinois, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania — have a different calculus. Their eyes are said to be fixed on 2028; calling for Biden’s exit now could alienate potential supporters and donors four years from now. If Biden bows out, Vice President Kamala Harris would have the inside track for the nomination anyway. (Today, Whitmer ruled out running this year in the event Biden bows out.)

So far, the cautious support of the governors — who are among the party’s biggest stars — has helped the president cauterize the wound.

But the next essential map — the House and Senate landscape — isn’t as forgiving, which is why a growing number of House Democrats have publicly called for Biden to step aside and Senate Democrats have largely only issued measured support for the president.

The fear factor surrounding Biden’s performance is palpable: A Trump rout would almost certainly be accompanied by an expanded GOP House majority, and a larger GOP Senate majority than expected.

So far, the Senate’s most vulnerable Democrats — some of whom have already managed to run ahead of Biden in state polls — have put the onus on Biden and conceded that voters have legitimate questions about Biden that have yet to be answered. Montana Sen. Jon Tester, one of the Senate’s most vulnerable Democrats, said today, “President Biden has got to prove to the American people — including me — that he’s up to the job for another four years. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to do what I’ve always done: Stand up to President Biden when he’s wrong and protect our Montana way of life.”

Ticking off the administration’s accomplishments, as Biden did in his letter today, doesn’t prove he’s up to the job for another four years. Nor does bashing party elites, or asserting the details of his runaway victory for the party nomination, change the dynamics of the House and Senate election map. Only evidence that the president can deliver a robust and energetic performance on the campaign trail will do.

The Electoral College map is Biden’s other enemy at the moment. The FiveThirtyEight national polling average is quite close — Biden trails by just 2.3 points. But national polls are meaningless in an election that will likely be decided in a small universe of battleground states. And in that universe, the president is trailing. At this point in 2020, Biden led in the polling average in every battleground state, not to mention every other state with a blue hue. This time around, he trails in every battleground state — and is struggling in a few other nominally blue states he won easily in 2020.

None of it is cause for replacing him as the nominee. But with just 42 days until the Democratic National Convention and 120 days until Election Day, they are powerful currents working against an 81-year-old president coming off a calamitous debate.

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What'd I Miss?

— Boeing agrees to accept a new stain: the brand of felon: The Justice Department and Boeing came to an agreement in which the company will plead guilty to conspiracy to defraud the government stemming from two deadly plane crashes in 2018 and 2019 — the latest escalation of the quality-control crisis plaguing one of the nation’s biggest manufacturers. The charge accuses the company of violating a deferred-prosecution agreement in 2021 in which Boeing had pledged to improve its manufacturing processes. Boeing will admit it conspired to defraud the federal government for how it handled information related to the faulty flight-control software implicated in the MAX crashes. It also has agreed to an independent third-party monitor, pay an additional $487 million, over and above what the company paid as part of a prior settlement, and invest $455 million in additional compliance programs.

— Schumer: Democrats will try to remove immunity from Trump Jan. 6 acts: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said today that Democrats would pursue legislation to classify actions taken by former President Donald Trump surrounding the events of Jan. 6 as “unofficial” and therefore not immune from prosecution. That vow comes on the heels of a Supreme Court ruling last week that Trump is immune from prosecution for certain actions he took while fighting to subvert the 2020 election won by President Joe Biden.

— Anti-abortion groups roll out new messaging: The left has spent two years galvanizing voters against state abortion bans by handing a microphone to the women affected by them. Conservatives are now adopting that playbook in an effort to turn public opinion in their favor. Anti-abortion groups’ new campaign features women speaking directly to the camera — sharing stories of eschewing abortion after being raped, receiving a diagnosis of a fetal anomaly or finding out they were too far along to legally terminate their pregnancy. They aim to match the first-person ads that Democrats and abortion-rights groups have used in key races, like the successful abortion-rights ballot measure in Ohio and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s reelection in Kentucky.

Nightly Road to 2024

CASH DUMP — A big-spending super PAC linked to Republican mega-donor Miriam Adelson is set to spend $61 million on TV and digital ads attacking Biden, as the besieged president faces calls from within his own party to step aside following his disastrous debate performance. Preserve America will begin airing commercials later this month, timed to coincide with the start of the Summer Olympics, which is expected to draw massive viewership, according to POLITICO’s reporting. The ads, which will run through Labor Day, will air in three Rust Belt battleground states — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

RUBBER STAMPED — The Republican Party is abandoning its position explicitly advocating for federal abortion limits in favor of former President Donald Trump’s leave-it-to-the-states approach, under language adopted at a party platform committee meeting today.

The platform, which will be finalized by a vote of the full convention body next week, represents a major change for the GOP — and one that anti-abortion advocates had spent months rallying against. The new language describing abortion as an issue to be decided by the states is in line with the position held by Trump. Still, anti-abortion leaders are lauding the inclusion of language pointing to 14th Amendment protections that conservatives have long argued protects life beginning at conception.

‘DONE TALKING’ — A defiant President Joe Biden insisted to his donors today that he is “done talking about the debate” and implored the party to ignore any further distractions and direct its attention back to Donald Trump. “We need to move forward. Look, we have roughly 40 days til the convention, 120 days til the election. We can’t waste any more time being distracted,” Biden said in a private call with donors today, according to a recording obtained by POLITICO.

LINING UP — Rep. Steven Horsford, chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said he’s standing behind President Joe Biden’s bid for reelection as others in the party have called for him to stand aside. “President Joe Biden is the nominee and has been selected by millions of voters across this country, including voters here in Nevada,” Horsford (D-Nev.) said in a statement posted on social media.

AROUND THE WORLD

HOW FRANCE VOTED — In the end it was France’s left-wing bloc — not Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally — that came out on top in France’s national elections.

French voters had gone to the polls on Sunday amid expectations that the National Rally (RN) and its allies could, for the first time, clinch the most seats in parliament and even build a majority.

But a powerful anti-Le Pen movement, mobilized after the first round in the French election, collaborated to stop RN candidates from winning power.

When the results came in on Sunday night, Le Pen’s party — now led by Jordan Bardella — had won 142 seats, 50 more than in 2022 but a long way from an absolute majority of 289.

Both the left-wing New Popular Front alliance, at 188 seats, and French President Emmanuel Macron’s Ensemble bloc, with 161, remain larger political forces in the Paris assembly, but no group has a majority needed to govern. (Those numbers are likely to change as MPs decide which group they’ll sit with.)

Take a look here at POLITICO EU’s detailed breakdown of how France voted to stop the far-right — and give the left more power.

Nightly Number

RADAR SWEEP

SAVE THE BIRDS — A bird known as the Wilson’s phalarope is the only bird species that migrates across the entire Western hemisphere, stopping along the way mostly at inland salt lakes. Climate change has caused many of these lakes to dry up, depriving the Wilson’s phalarope of its natural habitats. But now, a petition has begun to circulate in Utah that would list the Wilson’s phalarope as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. It would have far reaching consequences beyond the bird itself, allowing for more conservation of its habitat and salt lakes across the hemisphere. Caroline Tracey reports on the effort for High Country News.

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