The News
Senior Democrats rallied around US President Joe Biden after polls suggested his floundering debate performance shook voters’ confidence in him. The president’s family urged him to continue despite calls for him to quit, and party figures including ex-President Barack Obama offered support.
In The New Yorker, Jay Caspian Kang laid out the case for keeping Biden: “The backup quarterback is the most popular man in town,” he wrote, and the Democrats lack good alternatives. Still, as Semafor’s Benjy Sarlin notes today, “there’s a visible split between those backing him enthusiastically and others now speaking in conditionals.”
The debate raised anxieties in Europe over a second Donald Trump presidency: One former Italian prime minister called for the Democrats to “change horses.”
